After the European Union and Great Britain also has the U.S. government how announced sanctions imposed on Russian President Vladimir Putin and several of his ministers. Affected are among others Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as well as the Head of the domestic secret service FSB, Alexander Bortnikovand other senior government officials, as the US Treasury Department said on Friday evening (local time). The White House had announced the sanctions against Putin and Lavrov a few hours earlier.
“It is exceptionally rare for the Treasury to impose sanctions on a head of state. President Putin joins a very small group that includes despots like Kim Jong Un, Alexander Lukashenko and Bashar al-Assad,” the US Treasury Department said, referring to those in power in North Korea, Belarus and Syria. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US government is holding Russia “accountable for the brutal and unprovoked attack on the Ukrainian people.” If necessary, the US is ready for further sanctions.
As a result of the sanctions any possible property of the persons concerned in the USA is frozen. US citizens and companies it is largely forbidden to do business with them or to support them financially. If those affected have no assets in the US – which seems likely in the case of Putin and Lavrov – the sanctions are still not just of symbolic importance. They make many international transactions difficult for those affected because Western banks and companies do not want to risk violating US sanctions. The financial sanctions are not associated with an entry ban.
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, wrote in the Telegram news channel in the evening that Putin and Lavrov had no accounts in Great Britain or overseas.