President Biden Cripples Russian Economy with Economic Sanctions: Russian Stock Market Tanks

By Yehudit Garmaise

“Putin’s unjustified aggression against Ukraine will end up costing Russia dearly: economically and strategically,” Biden said today. “We will make sure of that.” 

Biden authorized today new sanctions that limit Russia’s ability to do business in many currencies and will exclude the country from participating in the global economy, President Biden said.

“In today’s actions, we have frozen Russia’s banks that hold $1 trillion in assets,” the president said. “We have cut off from the US financial system Russia’s largest bank: a bank that holds more than one-third of Russia’s banking assets by itself, and today, we are blocking four more major banks.

“That means every asset Russians have in America will be frozen,” the president said about VTB, the second largest bank in Russia, which has $250 billion in assets. 

The president said such measures “will impose severe costs on the Russian economy: both immediately and over time,” said President Biden, who added that he “purposely designed the sanctions to maximize the long-term negative impact on Russia and to minimize the impact on the U.S. and our allies.”

While President Biden added that the sanctions he and a coalition of 27 allies designed also include preventing the Russian military from growing and impairing their ability to take compete in the high-tech 21st-century economy, a reporter asked why sanctions would deter Putin, when they have not already. 

“No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening,” the president responded. “This will take time, and we have to show resolve, so he knows what’s coming.

“Putin is going to test the resolve of the west to see whether we stay together, and we will, and it will impose significant costs on him,” Biden said.

Biden pointed out, “We have already seen the impact of our actions on the Russian ruble, which early today: hit its weakest level ever in history.

“The Russian stock market plunged. The Russian people see what Putin has brought upon them.” 

“Putin’s actions,” Biden said, “betray a sinister vision for a future in which nations take what they want by force, but it is a vision that the U.S. and freedom-loving nations oppose with every tool of our considerable power.”

Despite Putin’s efforts to issue false pretexts and made-up stories about Russia’s need to invade Ukraine, Biden said clearly: “Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences.”

Photo: Flickr