US plans fresh sanctions on Russia, including ban on all new investments

The United States and western allies plan to pile additional sanctions on Russia on Wednesday after the emergence of troubling new evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, a US official said Tuesday. The new penalties will include a ban on all new investment in Russia.

Among the other measures being taken against Russia are greater sanctions on its financial institutions and state-owned enterprises, and sanctions on government officials and their family members. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss the forthcoming announcement.

Separately, the Treasury Department moved Tuesday to block any Russian government debt payments with US dollars from accounts at US financial institutions, making it harder for Russia to meet its financial obligations.

US President Joe Biden and allies have worked together to levy crippling economic penalties against Russia for invading Ukraine more than a month ago, including the freezing of central bank assets, export controls, and the seizing of property, including yachts, that belong to Russia’s wealthy elite. But calls for increased sanctions intensified this week in response to the attacks, killings, and destruction in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

The official said the sanctions would further Russia’s economic, financial and technological “isolation” from the rest of the world as a penalty for its attacks on civilians in Ukraine. That isolation is a key aspect of the US strategy, which is premised on the idea that Russia will ultimately lack the resources and equipment to keep fighting a prolonged war in Ukraine.

An increasingly desperate Russia has engaged in military tactics that have outraged much of the wider global community, leading to charges that it is committing war crimes and causing other sanctions.

Still, almost all of the EU has refrained from an outright ban on Russian oil and natural gas that would likely crush the Russian economy. The US has banned fossil fuels from Russia, while Lithuania blocked natural gas from that country on Saturday, becoming the first of the 27-member EU to do so. The EU executive branch on Tuesday proposed a ban on Russian coal, while Germany’s government intends to end its use of Russian natural gas over the next two years.

On Monday, Biden called for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to be tried for war crimes and face new sanctions because of the atrocities and abuses seen around Kyiv after Russian forces pulled back from the Ukrainian capital. The corpses of what appeared to be civilians were seen strewn in yards, many of them likely killed at close range.

Biden said the US and its allies would gather details for a war crimes trial, stressing that Putin has been “brutal” and his actions “outrageous.”