The United States has sanctioned Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
President Biden spoke with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, before the White House announced the decision, Psaki said. The EC announced earlier that it, too, would sanction Putin and Lavrov.
The administration also sanctioned another Russian financial fund.
The Secretary of Treasury will also be imposing full blocking sanctions on the Russian Direct Investment Fund--a state owned financial entity that functions as a sovereign wealth fund, which is supposed to attract capital into the Russian economy in high-growth sectors.
— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) February 25, 2022
Also Friday the Biden administration requested, according to congressional and administration sources, $6.4 billion in funding to address the invasion of Ukraine, though sources caution the final amount could change as the situation evolves.
The request includes funding for humanitarian assistance and defense programs — support for Ukraine's forces and funding for U.S. troops deploying to support NATO allies in Eastern Europe. The money could include funding for food and energy assistance, economic stabilization and efforts to combat Russian cyberattacks and disinformation. There could also be a small amount of additional funding to support implementation of sanctions by the Commerce and Treasury departments.
Sanctions follow measures Biden announced earlier this week
The first wave of sanctions against Russia — announced Tuesday — targeted two Russian financial institutions along with the government's ability to access Western financing. Thursday, in response to Russian President Putin invading Ukraine, the Biden administration announced the U.S. will block Sberbank — the largest Russian bank — from accessing the U.S. financial system as well as new financial sanctions for VTB, the second-largest bank, and three other financial institutions.
The United States and other Western nations also agreed to stop exporting high-tech products like semiconductors to Russia.
NPR's Deirdre Walsh and Franco Ordoñez contributed to this story.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
