G7 Planning New Round Of Sanctions Against Russia
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The U.S., Europe and their G7 partners are likely to impose new sanctions on Russia as early as today, reported the Wall Street Journal, as Russian forces continue to stationed en masse along the Ukrainian border, while a promised truce in eastern Ukraine has yet to materialise.
The U.S., Europe and their G7 partners are likely to impose new sanctions on Russia as early as today, reported the Wall Street Journal, as Russian forces continue to stationed en masse along the Ukrainian border, while a promised truce in eastern Ukraine has yet to materialise.
On Sunday, Tony Blinken, deputy national security adviser at the White House, said that the new sanctions would target individuals in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle as well as the companies they own.
The goal is to affect the economy enough to get Putin to solve the Kremlin’s disputes with Ukraine with diplomacy, he said.
“We have to be deliberate about it,” Mr. Blinken said, according to the Washington Times. “There are lot of things going on around him, people who matter to him, who will be affected by these sanctions, but more than that, it’s the Russian economy.”
The EU also plans to slap about 15 additional Russian and pro-Russian leaders with a travel ban and asset freeze, while Canada and Japan (the other members of the G7) are reported to be imposing their own sanctions soon.
Speaking during a news conference in Malaysia, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that united international sanctions had the best chance of influencing Moscow, pushing back at suggestions that the U.S. should proceed with or without European allies.
[quote]”The more we are unified, the more effective it is going to be,” Obama said, adding, “we are going to keep on raising the consequences of Russia rejecting that path towards diplomacy.”[/quote]Related: Will Russian Sanctions Compromise Global Energy Security?
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U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague added on Sunday that the West were prepared to incur some economic losses over the sanctions.
Damage to the economy resulting from trade sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis would be a “price worth paying,” Hague said to the BBC.
[quote]”Of course we have always hoped… that we don’t have to go ahead with those things… We want world trade to expand and improve. But we will go ahead with them if necessary, if Russia continues to escalate this crisis.”[/quote]“We will calculate them in a way that has the maximum effect on the Russian economy and the minimum effect on our own economies in the EU,” he said.
