Dikhyaa Mohanty 
US President Joe Biden announced a series of economic sanctions against Russia as he accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of aggression against Ukraine. Biden, announcing America’s first tranche of economic sanctions against Russia, told reporters at the White House that “there’s no question that Russia is the aggressor. So, we’re clear-eyed about the challenges we’re facing”.
According to the report Biden stated that Putin bizarrely asserted that these regions are no longer part of Ukraine and their sovereign territory. To put it simply, Russia just announced that it is carving out a big chunk of Ukraine. He said “Last night, Putin authorised Russian forces to deploy into these regions. Today, he asserted that these regions actually, extend deeper than the two areas he recognised, claiming large areas currently under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian government. He’s setting up a rationale to take more territory by force in my view. And if we listen to his speech last night, he’s setting up a rationale to go much further. This is the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine as he indicated and asked permission to be able to do from his duma.”
“We’re implementing full-blocking sanctions on two large Russian financial institutions, VEB and their military bank. We’re implementing comprehensive sanctions on Russian sovereign debt. That means we’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western financing. It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either. Starting tomorrow and continuing in the days ahead, we’ll also impose sanctions on Russia’s elites and their family members. They share in the corrupt gains of the Kremlin policies and should share in the pain as well. Because of Russia’s actions, we work with Germany to ensure Nord Stream 2 will not, as I promised, will not move forward,” Biden said.
