Washington: President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced the first series of sanctions against Russia and called Putin’s moves in Eastern Ukraine the ‘beginning of Russian invasion’. Biden announcing the sanctions at the White House in presence of reporters said, “there’s no question that Russia is the aggressor. So, we’re clear-eyed about the challenges we’re facing”.
The sanctions come a day after the Kremlin signed a decree recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk as individual territories and ordered the deployment of troops. “We are implementing full blocking sanctions on two large Russian financial institutions: VEB and their military bank,” Biden said adding, “We are implementing comprehensive sanctions on Russia’s sovereign debt. That means we have cut off Russia’s government from Western financing. It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either.”
Smacking Putin on his bizarrely asserted entry into Ukraine through two regions in the East, Biden said “Last night, Putin authorised Russian forces to deploy into these regions. Today, he asserted that these regions actually, extend deeper than the two areas he recognised, claiming large areas currently under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian government.”
Following Putin’s announcements, Biden along with his allies signed an executive order that will prohibit all new investment, trade and financing by the US to or from or in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republic.
Visuals collected by satellite over the past 24 hours show deployment and movement of additional logistics and supplies in southern Belarus and at multiple sites in western Russia near the Ukrainian border. More than 100 vehicles and dozens of troop tents at a small airfield near Mozyr in southern Belarus were seen in the visual.