“The only tool the West has are sanctions. The sanctions will be severe, they will certainly hurt Russia, but Russia has become much better able to weather sanctions since 2014.'
President Biden faced a barrage of tough questions from reporters at the White House on Thursday as he announcedFor weeks, Biden has waved theas part of a public and, ultimately, unsuccessful effort by the U.S. and NATO allies to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from launching a full-scale military attack on the former Soviet nation.
The latest round of sanctions target Russia’s largest state-owned banks, as well as a number of wealthy elites and members of Putin’s inner circle. Biden also said the U.S. and its allies in Europe and Asia would move to cut off Russia’s access to high-end technology imports. “The only tool the West has are sanctions. The sanctions will be severe, they will certainly hurt Russia, but Russia has become much better able to weather sanctions since 2014,” said Rajan Menon, director of the Grand Strategy program at Defense Priorities, a national security think tank.to beef up his country’s economic defenses since it was hit hard by Western sanctions over the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
While Biden said Thursday that the possibility of sanctioning Putin personally remains “on the table,” Jentleson said any direct sanctions against the Russian president or his family “would be largely a symbolic action” and could even be used to undermine U.S. credibility if they are ineffective. “Europe has nine times as much trade with Russia as we do,” said Jentleson. “In the moment, because of what Russia has done, the alliance is holding together, but how long that holds is hard to see.”On Thursday, Biden indicated that concerns about economic blowback for Europe had already influenced the Western coalition’s decision to hold off, at least for now, on implementing at least one key sanction: kicking Russia off the global financial transaction system known as SWIFT.
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