WASHINGTON (AP) – The Biden administration ordered new sanctions blocking Russian business oligarchs and others in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle on Thursday in response to a fierce strike by Russian forces against Ukraine.
President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky spoke late Thursday as Russian forces shelled Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar. The attack sparked a fire and raised fears that radiation could leak from the damaged power plant.
The White House said Biden had joined Zelensky in urging Russia to “suspend military operations in the area and allow firefighters and emergency workers to have access to the site.”
Among those subject to new US sanctions are Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov, one of Russia’s richest men and a close ally of Putin. The US State Department also announced that it was imposing visa bans on 19 Russian oligarchs and dozens of members of their families and close associates.
“The goal was to maximize the impact on Putin and Russia and to minimize harm to us and our allies and friends around the world,” Biden said as he noted the new sanctions at the start of a meeting with his cabinet and Vice President Kamala Harris.
The White House said the oligarchs and dozens of members of their families would be cut off from the US financial system. Their assets in the United States will be frozen and their assets will be blocked from use.
The White House described Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, as “a major supplier of Putin’s propaganda.”
The property of Usmanov and the others will be blocked from use in the United States and by Americans. His assets include his superyacht, one of the largest in the world, and his private jet, one of Russia’s largest private jets.
Usmanov’s superyacht, known as Dilbar, is named after Usmanov’s mother and is valued at between $ 600 million and $ 735 million, according to the finance ministry. Dilbar has two helipads and one of the largest indoor pools in the world ever installed on a yacht, and costs about $ 60 million a year to operate. The target plane is estimated to have cost between $ 350 million and $ 500 million and was previously commissioned by the Uzbek president.
Others focused on Thursday include Nikolai Tokarev, executive director of Transneft; Arkady Rotenberg, co-owner of the largest construction company for gas and electricity pipelines in Russia; Sergei Chemezov, a former KGB agent who has long been close to Putin; Igor Shuvalov, former First Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the State Development Corporation; and Evgeny Prigogine, a Russian businessman with close ties to Putin.
Prigogine, known as “Putin’s cook”, was among those accused in 2018 by the US government as part of a comprehensive effort to influence American political opinion during the 2016 presidential election.
According to the indictment, Prigogine and his companies then provided significant funding to the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, a group accused of using fake social media posts and fraudulently purchased advertisements on behalf of Americans to influence the White race. house.
US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeimo said on Thursday that the Biden administration would continue to target the Russian elite while building sanctions against the country. He said elites were already “trying to withdraw their money from Russia because the Russian economy is shrinking.”
“We will make it difficult for them to use the assets in the future,” Adeyemo said at an event hosted by The Washington Post. He added: “Our goal is to find this money and freeze it and confiscate it.
The Biden administration has unveiled new sanctions against Russian individuals and businesses every day since last week’s invasion, with officials saying they want to make sure Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine comes at a huge cost to the Russian economy.
A notable aspect of the recent sanctions is the extent to which the United States has punished members of the families of oligarchs and Putin’s closest relatives. The recent anti-money laundering legislation passed by Congress has helped the Treasury to identify and target such people.
For example, family members of Petroleum CEO Tokarev – including his wife Galina Tokareva and daughter Maya Tokareva – took advantage of his closeness to Putin and the Russian government and were affected by the sanctions. Maya Tokareva’s real estate empire is valued at more than $ 50 million in Moscow, according to the finance ministry.
Russia’s elites, who have not yet targeted the United States or other Western countries, have turned their attention to sanctions.
Faced with the threat of financial sanctions against the Russians, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich announced on Wednesday that he was trying to sell the Premier League football club, which has become a trophy-winning machine thanks to his generous investment. Abramovich made his fortune from oil and aluminum during the chaotic years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
So far, Biden has been reluctant to sanction Russia’s energy sector for fear that it would harm the United States and its allies, as well as the Russians.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: “We have no strategic interest in reducing global energy supplies.
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Associated Press author Colleen Long contributed to the report.