President Joe Biden is planning to levy sanctions personally against Russian President Vladimir Putin as he wages an all-out assault in Ukraine, the White House announced on Friday, a major escalation in the economic punishments being levied against Russia and its leadership.
“In alignment with the decision by our European allies, the United States will join them in sanctioning President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during a press briefing, saying that the decision may include a travel ban on Putin and a freezing of his assets abroad.
While there are “very limited examples of this being done,” Psaki said, the White House would provide more details of the sanctions shortly.
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The sanctions, first reported by CNN and confirmed by The Daily Beast shortly before Psaki’s announcement, would attempt to isolate Putin and include an asset freeze, but the decision may be largely symbolic. The potential sanctions had been a matter of major debate within the administration, sources at the Departments of Justice and State told The Daily Beast. Putin has amassed an enormous fortune measuring in the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars, largely through shadow holdings in Russian corporations. But sources familiar with disagreements over the sanctions noted that most of Putin’s core assets are either in Russia or under his control—making the freezing of his known assets outside of Russia more performative than punitive.
The move will put Putin on the same level as despots the United States has previously sanctioned around the world.
The U.S. government has previously put sanctions on Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The U.S. has also hit Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Myanmar’s leader Than Shwe, and Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, with sanctions.
Some leaders have likely hesitated to sanction Putin personally in the hopes that sparing sanctions on him would leave diplomacy on the table.
Biden demurred earlier in the week when reporters repeatedly pressed him on why he wasn’t moving to sanction Putin as Russian airstrikes rained down throughout Ukraine.
“In alignment with the decision by our European allies, the United States will join them in sanctioning President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said of the decision Friday.
The news comes just hours after Biden concluded a call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, during which Zelensky said he urged Biden to take harsher steps to punish Russia while Putin launches an all-out assault in Ukraine and works to capture the capital, Kyiv.
Zelensky’s pleas for help have grown more ominous in recent hours, as he warned he has been informed he is Putin’s number one target as Russia closes in around Kyiv.
“They want to destroy Ukraine politically by destroying the head of state,” Zelensky said Friday. “We have been left alone to defend our state.”
The Biden administration has already sanctioned Putin’s circles of elite oligarchs, their children, and multiple Russian banks in an attempt to throttle their ability to do business and cut them off from international financing. But the sanctions appeared to do little to deter Putin—hours after the Biden administration announced the first round of sanctions Monday, Russia moved in on Ukraine.
As Russia’s attack in Ukraine has advanced, Biden has begun making several announcements about additional waves of sanctions on Russia and its elite in an attempt to make them feel the burn. Biden tried to up the ante again on Wednesday by sanctioning the company in charge of building Nord Stream 2, in an effort to take away a cash cow for Putin.
But lawmakers in the halls of Congress and Ukrainian officials have been critical of Biden’s step-by-step approach, urging him to take even more punitive measures as casualties begin mounting in Ukraine and civilians are getting caught in the crossfire.
It was not immediately clear what Russia’s response would be, or if the personal sanctions would make a dent on any of its military plans. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has previously said, though, that personally sanctioning Putin would be “politically destructive.”
Biden hinted in remarks Thursday that relations are already at historic lows. “There is a complete rupture right now in U.S.-Russia relations,” Biden said.
