WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Friday announced more than 500 new sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine and its deaths. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in jail last week.
Biden said the sanctions would target those linked to Navalny’s arrest, as well as Russia’s financial sector, defense industrial base, supply networks and sanctions evaders on several continents.
“They will make Putin pay an even bigger price for his aggression abroad and repression at home,” Biden said in a statement about the sanctions, which coincided with the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The U.S. is also imposing export restrictions on about 100 entities that support Russia’s military efforts and have taken steps to reduce Russia’s energy revenues, Biden said.
“I have directed my team to strengthen support for civil society, independent media and those fighting for democracy around the world,” he added.
Biden stressed the importance of Congress passing the Senate’s foreign aid package, saying Ukraine is “running out of ammunition.” Ukraine needs more supplies from the United States to “resist Russia’s relentless attacks,” aided by munitions and weapons from Iran and North Korea, the president said.
“That’s why the House must pass a bipartisan national security supplemental bill before it’s too late,” Biden said.
Sanctions package, which The president looked ahead The announcement came on Tuesday, exactly a week after the Russian prison service said Navalny, 47, had died in a Russian colony above the Arctic Circle. He was serving a combined sentence of more than 30 years for extremism and fraud charges, which he denied.
Thursday, Biden He met with Navalnyhis wife, Yulia Navalnayaand their daughter, Dasha, in California.
Meanwhile, Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said in a video statement on Thursday that she was allowed to view her son’s body at the morgue, but her lawyer could not accompany her. He claimed that the Russian authorities were “blackmailing” him by threatening to “do something with the body” if he did not agree to a secret funeral.