The Biden Administration still fantasizes that it can impose strategic defeat on Russia using just about the only tool it has left short of nuclear weapons, that is, sanctions. Yesterday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order allowing the U.S. to impose another level of sanction enforcement on Russia targeting financial institutions that have allegedly indirectly have allowed Russia to keep building its war arsenal. “The new executive order by the President will simply give us a tool that will allow us to go after financial institutions that failed to make the choice to either stop allowing their companies to ship these goods to the Russia’s military industrial complex, or getting out of business with Russia,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters, according to the White House transcript.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the new sanctions “will make clear to foreign financial institutions that facilitating significant transactions relating to Russia’s military industrial base will expose them to sanctions risk,” noting that the multiple rounds of sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies to date “have significantly degraded Russia’s ability to replace the equipment, materials, and technology it needs to fuel its aggression.”
According to a report in ABC News, Biden’s order is aimed at cracking down on an evasion tactic that has allowed Russia to continue to get access to financial institutions through other, smaller financial institutions, and buy materials they need for war. Russian sanctions, they say, have been a constant game of cat and mouse, and the new executive order marks the latest attempt to catch Russia in those tactics.
