Obama Announces Sanctions Against Key Sectors of Russian Economy

With Marine One waiting behind him for the president to board with Florida as the destination, Barack Obama needed less than five minutes to relay Washington’s opinion about the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and was already giving his back to the press when he ignored the question of whether he considered Crimea lost. More economic sanctions, this time destined to hurt key sectors of the Russian economy, including the energy exportation sector, will be the White House’s response two days after rejecting last Sunday’s referendum of any type of American military intervention in the former-Soviet Union.

Dismissing any military capriciousness, the only possible path that the White House continues to have is to apply pressure with economic sanctions, though the decisions of the United States do not always go hand-in-hand with [those of] the European Union, which — as the president recognized — could damage the global economy in the end. The president announced that he had signed a new executive order that imposed new sanctions against individuals and a bank in response to what he defined as an illegal secession during a time “when borders can be redrawn.”

According to sources from the Department of the Treasury, Rossiya is the bank that will suffer the imposition of the sanctions and thus face difficulties in gaining liquidity in dollars because of its relationship with a score of Russian functionaries and people close to Vladimir Putin. Among those affected by the new sanctions are various collaborators close to Putin — and some Judo partners — and the presidents of various companies, including those of the railway companies and some contractors from the gas conglomerate Gazprom.

After calling himself “deeply concerned,” the president declared that Moscow had made its decisions, which obligated Washington to move its pieces in the only possible direction that the United States could allow itself to: Punish Russia and support Ukraine. However, once more since the beginning of this crisis — already an accomplished annexation — Obama has said that diplomacy between the U.S. and Russia continues on its path and that Vladimir Putin still has an open door [through which] to backtrack from the escalation of the annexation.

The president showed his concern regarding the mobilization of Russian troops and the eventual penetration into eastern and southern zones of Ukraine. The larger the Russian surge becomes, the greater the international isolation the nation will face, said the president. Minutes after the president’s speech concluded, the Kremlin went into detail about this being the most serious crisis between the old enemies since the Cold War, and it announced the prohibition on entry of American legislators into the country, among them U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner — who said he was proud to be on the Russian blacklist — and Republican Sen. John McCain.