US and EU announce further sanctions on Russia

On April 28, the White House announced a fresh round of sanctions on seven Russian citizens and seventeen legal entities. The sanctions come as a result of growing evidence that Russia is promoting separatist violence in eastern Ukraine. A White House statement called Russia’s role in encouraging insurrection in Ukraine’s eastern regions “indisputable.”

Speaking in Manila on April 28, President Barack Obama said the goal of the sanctions is not to attack Russian President Vladimir Putin personally, but rather to “change his calculus with respect to how the current actions that he’s engaging in Ukraine could have an adverse impact on the Russian economy over the long haul.”

One of the targets of the new sanctions is Igor Sechin, the president of state oil company Rosneft. The US also added new restrictions on the supply to Russia of high-tech materials used by its  defense industry. Also on US sanction list are Aleksei Pushkov, head of international affairs committee at the Russian parliament’s lower house, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, and Sergei Chemezov, another longtime Putin ally. 

Even with the new measures, Mr. Obama said that he was not optimistic that the measures would be enough to change Vladimir Putin’s tactics in Ukraine. Neither the US nor Europe is ready to impose sanctions on Russia’s key banking, defense and energy industries, though Mr. Obama said that the West was keeping these measures in reserve in case the situation worsens and Russia launches a full military incursion into Ukraine. Also on Monday, the EU moved to add another 15 officials to its Russian sanctions list to protest Moscow’s actions in Ukraine  – the list is to be published on April 29.