(CNN) — The United States took additional steps on Wednesday to increase economic pressure on Russia and President Vladimir Putin, after horrific images emerged from the city of Bucha, Ukraine. The Biden administration announced new sanctions against Russian financial institutions as well as individuals, including the adult daughters of Vladimir Putin, as well as Foreign Minister Lavrov’s wife and daughter.
“Today we are dramatically escalating the financial impact by imposing full lockdown sanctions on Russia’s largest financial institution, Sberbank, and its largest private bank, Alfa Bank,” a senior administration official told a news briefing.
Sberbank owns almost a third of the total assets of Russia’s banking sector, the official noted, adding that the United States has now completely blocked “more than two-thirds of the Russian banking sector.”
The administration also imposed total lockdown sanctions on a new group of Russian elites and their relatives. Among them, the adult daughters of Putin, Mariya Putina and Katerina Tikhonova.
It also imposed sanctions on the wife and daughter of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and members of the Russian Security Council, including former Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. The United States has already sanctioned more than 140 oligarchs and their relatives and more than 400 Russian government officials, the senior official said.
Sanctions on Russian banks and companies
The United States will also apply full blocking sanctions on major Russian state-owned companies, to be announced by the Treasury Department on Thursday. The official also highlighted Tuesday’s announcement that the Treasury Department has prevented Russia from making debt payments with dollars stored in US banks.
The official pointed to the crippling effect of US measures on the Russian economy since its invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia’s GDP is projected to shrink by double digits this year… It is not in the process of being isolated as a pariah state. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) projects that this year’s economic shock will wipe out the last 15 years of economic gains,” the official said.
Asked about the effectiveness of sanctions in ending Putin’s war in Ukraine, the senior official tried to underscore the effect they are having on life in Russia, saying that Putin would eventually have to reckon with Russian citizens.
“Even an autocrat like Putin has a social contract with the Russian people. He took away their freedom in exchange for promising them stability and that is why he is not giving them stability,” the official said.
“The question is really not so much what can we do and when will it take effect? I think it is: What is the end game here for Putin? What is he playing for? Said the official. “This is clearly becoming a failure for him and at some point he’s going to have to acknowledge that reality.”
CNN’s Betsy Klein and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.