The Biden Administration has now defined low-level consumer goods as “dual use” items that have potential military use. “The Biden administration is targeting the latest munitions in Russia’s war in Ukraine: coffee makers, toasters, air conditioner units, hair dryers and microwaves,” Politico reported yesterday following the announcement of new sanctions on Russia by the Biden Administration this week. Politico cites U.S. officials saying that these common household items contain microchips and other components that Russia has used to repair and replace military equipment and these are among the items targeted in the new sanctions that were rolled out yesterday.
“We’re seeing Russia increasingly use dual-use goods to further their military industrial complex, tearing out semiconductors from everything to fridges to microwaves in order to put them in military equipment,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in remarks on Feb. 22 that provided a broad preview of this week’s action, Politico reports. “What we’re going to do is further tighten our exports controls and sanctions to go after these dual-use goods we know are furthering their war effort,” he added. The toaster on your kitchen counter is a dual use item? This is already a running joke on the Russophile Telegram channels, where they often refer to Russian forces attacking Ukrainian positions with toasters and washing machines (the latter could be a serious threat to some of Kiev’s dirtier Nazi swine). Nonetheless, if you want to export toasters or any of hundreds of other innocuous items to Russia you will now need a special license, which you’re not likely to get. Rather than “plugging holes” as one expert quoted by Politico suggested these new sanctions are doing, what they really show is the ineffectiveness of the wide ranging sanctions regime so far.
Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov ridiculed the new sanctions and the whole U.S. approach to Russia in response to a media question posted to him yesterday. “On Feb. 24th, the world has witnessed yet another round of mindless economic and personal sanctions against Russia and its citizens,” he said on the embassy’s website. “They once again want us to ‘suffer.’ Does anyone really believe that such measures will make our country give up its independent course, divert from the chosen path towards a multipolar world based on the principle of indivisible security, international law and the UN Charter?”
