Published on February 24, 2024 6:41 p.m
Reading time: 6 minutes
American President Joe Biden, Friday, February 23, 2024, in Washington (USA). (CHIP SOMODEVILLA / AFP)
According to Washington, these sanctions are aimed in particular at “individuals associated with the detention of Alexei Navalny.” Moscow, for its part, promised to “take revenge.”
“Vladimir Putin must pay a heavy price for his aggression against Ukraine,” Joe Biden wrote a week after the death of Alexei Navalny and on the eve of the second anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine. The President of the United States announced on Friday, February 24, the largest round of American sanctions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. According to Washington, these sanctions target “individuals linked to Navalny’s detention,” but also the “Russian financial sector, defense industry, supply networks and perpetrators who evade sanctions on multiple continents.”
In total, the Treasury and State Departments targeted more than 500 individuals and entities in 26 countries, blocking their assets in the United States and restricting their access to visas. The Commerce Department also added 93 companies to its blacklist. Franceinfo takes stock of these new sanctions that have already been imposed since the start of the war.
1 Why these new sanctions?
This new round of sanctions, the most significant since the start of the war, comes in response to the death of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny at the age of 47 in a penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence for “extremism.” These measures are “just the beginning “said John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. “You can expect further steps from the administration to hold the Kremlin accountable for Navalny's death.”
However, the main goal of the sanctions imposed by the US remains to limit the financial resources available to Moscow to finance the war against Ukraine. “We are taking steps to further reduce revenue from the Russian energy sector, and I have asked my teams to increase support for civil society, independent media and all those fighting for democracy around the world,” said the President of the United States new sanctions when these measures are announced.
2 Who are they targeting?
The long list of companies sanctioned by the United States includes technology companies in semiconductors, optics, drones and information systems and even an applied mathematics institute. Also on the list is the Russian payment system Mir, which allows Russians to make payments and withdraw money in certain countries abroad. According to the US Treasury Department, its development “has enabled Russia to build a financial infrastructure that allows it to circumvent sanctions and restore severed ties to the international financial system.”
Washington claims it is “targeting individuals outside Russia who facilitate, orchestrate, participate in, or otherwise support the transfer of critical technologies and equipment to the Russian military-industrial base.” The US Treasury Department warned in a statement that sanctions would continue to be imposed on “individuals, wherever they are, who enable Russia to reconnect with global financial markets through illicit channels.” Sanctions were imposed on people who are staying in China or Germany in particular. The United States also imposed sanctions on 14 tankers in a “ghost fleet” that Russia was using to escape capped oil prices.
3 How does Russia react?
Russian Security Council Vice President Dmitry Medvedev responded to these new US sanctions by vowing that Russia would take revenge for the West's sanctions. “That she [les Occidentaux] Everyone suffers there. We must remember this, we must take revenge on them wherever possible. They are our enemies,” the former Russian president, accustomed to declarations of war, wrote on Telegram.
Dmitry Medvedev also called for secret operations to be carried out on the territory of Western countries, while Russia is already regularly accused of espionage operations, influence operations and assassinations or attempted assassinations and Moscow systematically denies these. It is also necessary “to carry out activities of a certain kind on their territory that we cannot talk about publicly. In war as in war,” he said.
4 Has Ukraine received further aid?
American sanctions are not an isolated case. As the second anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine approaches, sanctions announcements in Western countries are increasing. On February 21, European Union countries agreed on a thirteenth package of sanctions, while the United Kingdom took measures against more than 50 personalities and companies. They also target “Russia’s key sources of income” from trade in metals, diamonds and energy resources in order to “cut off funding for Putin’s illegal war from all possible sources.” The United Kingdom also announced new missile deliveries to the Ukrainians.
Ukraine welcomes these sanctions, but above all calls for the supply of new weapons to defuse the situation at the front, where the Russian army is making progress. “The most important thing is to release the sky. Air defense and aircraft will contribute to this,” believes Volodymyr Zelensky. During his visit to Ukraine, Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would provide $2.2 billion in aid to Ukraine in 2024 as part of a bilateral security agreement. The Canadian prime minister also accused Vladimir Putin of being directly responsible for the “murder” of Alexei Navalny.
5 Do these sanctions have an effect?
In total, more than 4,000 companies have been affected by American sanctions since the start of the war. In addition, there are the incomes of other Western countries in these two years. As a reminder, at the beginning of the war, the United States and its allies imposed a series of sanctions aimed at weakening Russia's economy. On March 10 and 11, 2022, European leaders adopted a fourth phase of sanctions in Versailles, the impact of which was felt on the Russian economy six months later. Two years later, European sanctions no longer seem to have the same effect, while Russia has completely converted its economy to a war economy.
Despite the multitude of Western sanctions, Russia actually saw its GDP grow by 3.6% in 2023. For Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary, Vladimir Putin has “burdened the present and future of the Russian people” while “the Kremlin is voting.” “to reorient its economy to produce weapons as quickly as possible to kill its neighbors, at the expense of the economic future of its own people.” When the twelfth package of European sanctions against Russia was announced, Russia announced its intention to circumvent them. In particular, this package of measures banned the import of Russian diamonds, which are viewed by the Twenty-Seven as a source of financing for the Russian offensive in Ukraine.