Biden administration details further US sanctions against Russia
President Biden announced ramped-up measures against Russia after President Vladimir Putin deployed troops into Ukraine
Ret. Marine and Fox News contributor Johnny 'Joey' Jones discusses the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis, expressing his hope that the U.S. 'has a strategy.'
The Biden administration on Tuesday offered details into the U.S. sanctions it is imposing against Russia in reaction to Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine the day before.
Russian President Vladimir Putin during a news conference in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. (Yuri Kochetkov/Pool Photo via AP / AP Newsroom)
Following a speech from President Biden where he announced ramped-up economic measures against Russia in response to what he called "the beginning" of their "invasion of Ukraine," the U.S. Treasury unveiled the heightened sanctions being enforced through its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
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For starters, the administration has cut off two of the Kremlin's major state-owned banks from the U.S. financial system in an effort to target Russia's ability to finance further aggression.
Both institutions, the State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs Vnesheconombank (VEC) and Promsvyazbank Public Joint Stock Company (PSB), are critical to financing Russia's defense industry.
President Biden delivers remarks on developments in Ukraine and Russia, and announces sanctions against Russia, from the East Room of the White House February 22, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images / Getty Images)
The Treasury also listed "elites and families close to Putin" being targeted by the OFAC, saying that "sanctioned oligarchs have used family members to move assets and to conceal their immense wealth."
The names of the five individuals are Aleksandr Vasilievich Bortnikov and his son Denis Aleksandrovich Bortnikov, Petr Mikhailovich Fradkov, Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko, and his son Vladimir Sergeevich Kiriyenko.
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The U.S. is also placing further restrictions on Russia's ability to manage its sovereign debt. "That means we’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western financing," Biden explained during his speech from the White House. "It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either."
On Monday, Putin deployed troops into two separatist regions of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, located in the Eastern part of the country in an area named Donbas. The Russian president called the action a peacekeeping mission, and recognized the two regions as independent.
Following the invasion, Biden issued an executive order prohibiting Americans from doing business with Donetsk and Luhansk.
A Ukrainian serviceman smokes at a position on the front line with Russia-backed separatists near the settlement of Troitske in the Lugansk region on February 22, 2022, a day after Russia recognized east Ukraine's separatist republics and ordered the … (Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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Now, the White House is vowing that further sanctions will be imposed if Putin's troops move beyond the two regions and deeper into Ukraine.
"This was the beginning of an invasion and this is the beginning of our response," a senior Biden official said Tuesday. "If Putin escalates further, we will escalate further using both financial sanctions and export controls, which we've yet to unveil."
FOX News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.