Bravo President Biden and other G7 Leaders for Implementing More Sanctions against Russia Last Week!
And now please implement more sanctions this week because Putin’s army is still in Ukraine.
The big news out of the G7 summit in Hiroshima regarding Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was the joint decision by the U.S. and NATO allies to allow Ukrainian pilots to begin training on F-16s. This is the first step towards giving these fighter aircraft to Ukraine. I wrote about the significance of that decision earlier this week here on Substack: https://michaelmcfaul.substack.com/p/the-long-term-significance-of-sending. The other news that should have gotten more attention concern the joint action taken by the G7 leaders to strengthen sanctions against Russia in response to Putin’s ongoing war and occupation in Ukraine. As the Department of Treasury announced on May 19, 2023:
Today, the United States, in coordination with the G7 and other international partners, is strengthening the unprecedented global sanctions and other restrictive economic measures to further degrade the Russian Federation’s capacity to wage war against Ukraine. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is implementing new commitments made at the G7 Leaders’ Summit to hold Russia accountable for its war.
From the beginning of President Putin’s illegal and unprovoked war, our global coalition has focused on supporting Ukraine while degrading Russia’s ability to conduct its invasion,” said Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen. “Our collective efforts have cut Russia off from key inputs it needs to equip its military and is drastically limiting the revenue the Kremlin receives to fund its war machine. Today’s actions will further tighten the vise on Putin’s ability to wage his barbaric invasion and will advance our global efforts to cut off Russian attempts to evade sanctions.
Sanctions announced last week, were bold and sweeping, focused especially on curtailing the transfer of technologies to Russia that could be used for bolstering the war effort. The new sanctions also targeted on-Russian companies and individuals such as the “Liechtenstein-based company Trade Initiative Establishment (TIE)” that “has been involved in the procurement of semiconductor and nanotechnology production equipment for U.S.-designated Russian entities since at least 2012.” Awesome! Also, the new addition to the list was a Dutch national Edwin Onno Van Ingen (Van Ingen), who “through his company Ronin Management B.V. (Ronin), [was] a primary Europe-based procurement agent for Russian laboratories focused on nuclear weapon design and development as well as research on advanced conventional weapons technologies.” Excellent! And Russia’s Ostec Group finally got sanctioned as this company “imports and distributes quantum and semiconductor technologies to Russian defense entities, specializing in the supply of foreign microelectronics and production equipment to the Russian military-industrial complex.” Finally!
The G7 leaders also committed to better enforcing existing sanctions. That is very laudable too.
.jpg){kind=link}
But that was Friday, May 19, five days ago. What new sanctions are being announced today? Every day that Putin’s army remains in Ukraine, sanctions should be ratcheted up. There should be new sanctions every day. Think of sanctions like parking tickets. You get a ticket when you park your car illegally. But if you leave your car parked in that same illegal place for the second day, you get a second ticket. And on the third day, you get a third ticket. Every day that Putin’s army is parked illegally in Ukraine, Russia should get a new ticket – a new set of sanctions.
And, in my view, sanctions on Putin’s Russia should not be aimed at changing Putin’s mind about his war. That won’t work with Putin. Rather, they should be aimed at reducing the amount of resources Putin and his government have to prosecute the war. The more and better sanctions are implemented as fast as possible, the more Ukrainian lives will be saved.
Some argue that there are no people or companies left to sanction. I radically disagree, or to be precise, our International Working Group on Russian Sanctions radically disagrees. After publishing ten papers over the last year outlining new sanctions in detail (you can access our previous papers here), we just published Working Group Paper #11: Action Plan 2.0 Strengthening Sanctions against the Russian Federation on April 24, 2023.
This new paper outlines many new sanctions that should and can be imposed on Russia. The paper includes sections on (1) Strengthening Sanctions on Oil and Energy; (2) Strengthening Sanctions on Non-Energy Trade; (3) Strengthening Military Sanctions; (4) Strengthening Technology Sanctions; (5) Strengthening Financial Sanctions; (6) Confiscating Russian Assets; (7) Increasing Individual Sanctions; (8) Designating Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism; (9) Enhancing Disclosure Requirements; (10) Supporting Business Divestment from Russia; (11) Strengthening Enforcement; and (12) Broadening the Sanctions Coalition. You can read the entire 33-page document here.
The free world must do what is necessary and as fast as possible to end Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Sending F-16s to Ukraine is a critical part of this effort. Enhancing sanctions is too.
What could be done to expel Russia from the UN Security Council?
I've read about a lot of loopholes in the sanctions and various middlemen who are helping Russia export its oil (hello India) and transport parts and other necessary items into the country (hello Central Asia, Georgia). Those seem like good sanctions targets too (and I think some were in your latest sanctions report, if I remember right).