The White House said that ordinary Russians weathering the West’s economic sanctions would know to blame President Vladimir Putin for their pain and warned of more in store if the military assault on Ukraine continues.
The United States and its allies have badly damaged Russia’s economy with sanctions on its central bank, financial sector, and defense industrial base in response to Moscow’s assault on Ukraine after President Joe Biden said that the U.S. would not send troops to defend Ukraine. But the crippling measures targeting Putin have also driven Russia’s economy into the ground.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that in spite of Putin’s best efforts, Russia’s people would know where to lay fault.“The Russian leadership is going to aggressively make the case to their public that the poor, innocent government of Russia has just been economically attacked by the West. And they will use their very considerable propaganda machine to push that line,” Sullivan told reporters Friday.
“They will be able to connect the dots, and the same will be true, up and down the Russian government,” he added. The president's top national security aide predicted that squeezing the country's economy would “shape” Moscow's thinking on how to proceed with the war.“We still retain the capacity to impose additional costs on Russia that are not strictly military costs,” he said aboard Air Force One.
The Biden administration has sought to isolate Russia and drive up the cost of the war, announcing new efforts this week to stop Russia from evading sanctions on its international currency and gold reserves.“Our purpose now is to fully disarm its war chest by making sure its foreign reserves serve no purpose in propping up the Russian currency,” a senior administration official told reporters Thursday.
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