According to Fox News, as the President announced the package, U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged that, “we don’t yet know whether it’s going to work.” The White House reported it was announcing the new sanctions because Russia “has done nothing” to honor its commitment from a recently struck diplomatic deal and “in fact has further escalated the crisis.” These new sanctions are on Russian individuals, according to the L.A. Times, and on companies targeted for their ties to President Vladimir Putin, part of an ongoing attempt to push the Russian leader to stand down in the fight for control of Ukraine. According to CNN News, President Barack Obama said the “targeted” sanctions are in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Sergei Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister, described the new sanctions as “disgusting,” according to the Washington Post. Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency that the U.S. announcement “demonstrates the utter absence of understanding about what is going on in Ukraine,” and that “It is a distorted mirror of foreign policy, not a responsible approach to the situation.” The White House reported that the penalties were in response to Russia’s “continued illegal intervention in Ukraine and provocative acts that undermine Ukraine’s democracy and threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to a report by the L.A. Times. “The goal here is not to go after Mr. Putin personally. The goal is to change his calculus,” President Obama said. “And to encourage him to actually walk the walk and not just talk the talk when it comes to diplomatically resolving the crisis in Ukraine.” The entire world is watching, and no one wants to see an escalating crisis in Ukraine. With calls for peace coming from every major economy, Putin is called on to do more than lip sync to the diplomats and global powers. An economic aide to Putin, Andrei Belousov, commented, “The more sanctions come, the stronger the consolidation of the elites will be,” according to the Interfax news agency.
Several prominent industrialists were sanctioned, former or current businesses of theirs were not sanctioned. So it seems that the sanctions overall have been carefully cherry picked while The U.S. also targeted several entities associated with Gennaddy Timchenko. A wealthy founder of a commodity trading firm, Timchenko was already sanctioned for providing assistance to an unnamed “senior official of the government of the Russian Federation.” U.S. President Obama said that if the sanctions do not work, the next phase could target sectors such as banking.
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