Biden announces more than 500 new sanctions against Russia for the death of Navalni and the invasion of Ukraine

MADRID, 23 Feb. (OTR/PRESS) –

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, announced this Friday a battery of “more than 500 sanctions” against Russia for the second anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine and the recent death of the opponent Alexei Navalny, in the latter case to punish people linked to his imprisonment.

Biden has remembered Navalni as “a brave activist against corruption and one of the fiercest opponents of (Vladimir) Putin”, whom the North American president had already held directly responsible for the death of one of the great symbols of dissidence against the Kremlin. , died a week ago in an Arctic prison.

Washington points to three individuals directly linked to Navalni’s imprisonment, but also expands the range to the financial sector, the defense industry, supply networks and people or entities in third countries that may be helping Russia to evade sanctions.

Among the three figures identified by Washington for Navalni’s death, the deputy director of the Russian Penitentiary System, Valeri Boyarinev, stands out. The State Department accuses him of instructing prison staff to apply “more severe treatment to Alexei Navalny while he was detained.”

Just a few hours after the news of the death of the prominent Russian dissident, Boyarinev was promoted to the rank of colonel general thanks to a presidential decree signed by Putin.

Alongside Boyarinev, the United States has sanctioned Igor Rakitin, chief general of the prison system for the Yamalo-Nenets region; and Vadim Kalinin, who serves as director general of the IK-3 penal colony, where Navalni died.

The North American Department of the Treasury has also identified 26 companies and individuals from eleven countries for favoring the evasion of sanctions, within a package of measures that extend only in this Ministry to almost 300 people and entities and that include nine banks – among them Avangard Joint Stock Bank and Rosfinance, the car manufacturer Aurus or the construction company Pik.

Likewise, the United States will restrict the exports of one hundred companies that help the Russian “war machine” “through the back door”, in the words of the president, whose Administration had already announced that it would announce a new battery of measures this Friday.

Biden hopes that “Putin pays an even greater price for his aggression abroad and for repression at home.” He fears that if the Russian leader is not held accountable for the “death” and “destruction” he has caused over the past two years, he may be encouraged to take similar actions in the future.

US AID

Biden has once again called on Congress to approve an aid package for Ukraine, since although the Ukrainian forces continue to fight the invading troops “with tremendous courage,” “they are running out of ammunition.” The Senate has already given the green light to this aid, which is now blocked in the House of Representatives, where Republicans are in the majority.

In this sense, he has called for completing the parliamentary process “before it is too late”, to give “urgent” funds to kyiv. «History is watching. “He will not forget the fact of not supporting Ukraine at this critical moment,” the White House tenant warned.

Biden has stressed that moving forward with the text also improves the security of the United States and, on the other hand, rejecting it could end up benefiting Putin: “It is time to demonstrate that the United States stands up for freedom and does not bow down to anyone.”

The North American president has also taken the opportunity to highlight that, although Putin may have thought that he could “easily” achieve his objectives in Ukraine in the face of an impassive international community, “NATO is stronger, bigger, and more united than ever” and fifty of countries have joined together in a global coalition to support Kiev.

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