New US sanctions target Russia's pro-Putin oligarchs

The United States will impose new sanctions on Russian oligarchs, including a travel ban, Joe Biden announces at a Cabinet meeting in the White House.

The United States imposed sanctions on the ultra-wealthy Russian oligarchs at the heart of President Vladimir Putin's regime Thursday in the latest ratcheting up of pressure on the Kremlin to halt its invasion of Ukraine.

They and their family members "will be cut off from the US financial system, their assets in the United States will be frozen and their property will be blocked from use," the White House said in a statement.

The sanctions match earlier EU measures against Russia's wealthiest figures, but also include a ban on travel to the United States and preventing these targeted people from hiding their assets through transfer to family members.

Biden accused oligarchs of "lining their pockets with the Russian people's money while the Ukrainian people are hiding in subways from missiles" and he vowed to maintain "the strongest, unified economic impact campaign in all history" against Moscow.

That brings the number of oligarchs hit by British sanctions to 15.

They own prestigious property in New York, sports clubs across the West, enormous yachts in the Mediterranean and send their children to the most expensive US universities, while traveling in luxury around the world.

- 'Squeeze' on Putin -

"We want him to feel the squeeze. We want the people around him to feel the squeeze. I don’t believe this is going to be the last set of oligarchs. Making them a priority and a focus of our individual sanctions is something the president has been focused on."

Usmanov's yacht, the "Dilbar," is currently at a shipyard in Hamburg for repair work.

The Biden administration listed Putin's wealthy, longtime spokesman Dmitry Peskov, a "top purveyor" of the Russian leader's "propaganda."

The United States and its Western allies have already imposed sweeping sanctions aimed at hobbling Russia's economy and the ability of the central bank to defend the ruble.

In many cases their children go to top European and US schools and universities and some have obtained residency through so-called golden visa schemes. Throughout, the oligarchs have maintained steely loyalty to Putin -- with those not toeing the line were sidelined or in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky imprisoned for years in what was seen as setting an example to the others.

...