The United States will impose additional sanctions on Russia over the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and its war on Ukraine later this week.
Navalny, a fierce critic of Putin, died at a strict-regime Arctic penal colony far away from Moscow last week under mysterious circumstances.
President Joe Biden blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for the shocking incident.
US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said at a news conference that at President Joe Biden’s direction, the White House will announce “a major sanctions package on Friday of this week to hold Russia accountable for what happened to Mr. Navalny and, quite frankly, for all its actions over the course of this vicious and brutal war that has now raged on for two years”.
“One of the most powerful things that we can do right now to stand up to Vladimir Putin, of course, is to, again, pass the bipartisan National Security Supplemental bill and support Ukraine as they continue to fight bravely in defense of their country,” he told reporters, referring to the legislation pending approval by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which includes provision for $61 billion aid to Ukraine.
This week, the House is on recess, having left town without taking action on this critical piece of legislation, which overwhelmingly passed the Senate last week with strong bipartisan support.
In a separate news briefing Tuesday, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said it will be a substantial package covering a range of different elements of the Russian defense industrial base and sources of revenue for the Russian economy that power Russia’s war machine.
The U.S. sanctions package will come on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the Ukraine war.
Sullivan told reporters that Washington is increasingly getting reports of Ukrainian troops rationing ammunition on the frontlines as Russian forces continue to attack both on the ground and from the air, trying to wear down the Ukrainian defenses.
Over the weekend, Ukrainian troops were forced to withdraw from the eastern city of Avdiivka, where they have been battling Russia for many months, handing Putin his first notable battlefield victory in a year. This happened in large part because Ukraine is running out of weapons due to congressional inaction, according to Sullivan. Ukrainian troops didn’t have the supplies and ammunition they needed to stop the Russian advance.
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