Joe Biden announced the US’s first tranche of sanctions “to impose costs on Russia in response to their actions”.
At a Washington DC press conference, he vowed to “continue to escalate sanctions if Russia continues to escalate.”
He said: “We’re implementing full blocking sanctions on two large Russian financial institutions, the VEB [a Russian state development corporation] and their military bank.”
Mr Biden added that “comprehensive sanctions on Russia’s sovereign debt” means that “we’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western financing”.
He said this means Russia “can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either.”
Sanctions will also be imposed on “Russian elites and their family members” from Wednesday, Mr Biden also announced.
