Russian President Vladimir Putin is in a “bad position”, his American counterpart Joe Biden said on Friday after announcing new sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions target the Russian energy sector.
“It’s really important that we don’t give him any respite,” said the American Democrat. The new coordinated measures between the US and UK governments target the Russian energy sector, in order to undermine “the Kremlin’s largest source of funding” for the war effort in Ukraine.
A few days before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump, the US Treasury Department detailed a series of sanctions targeting, among others, two of the main Russian companies in the sector, Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz.
According to London, these two companies “alone produce more than a million barrels of oil per day, or a value of approximately $23 billion per year at current prices.”
The American-British decision was immediately denounced as “unjustified and illegitimate” by Gazprom Neft, a subsidiary of the large state group Gazprom, cited by Russian press agencies.
Daleep Singh, White House deputy national security adviser for international economics, said the sanctions were “the largest ever imposed” by the United States on the Russian energy sector. “These sanctions will hit hard all key links in the Russian oil production and distribution chain,” he added.
Increase in gasoline
They could lead to “an increase in gasoline prices,” conceded US President Joe Biden, “between three and four cents per gallon.” “But it will have a much more profound impact on Russia’s ability to continue to act as it does in its conduct of the war,” he insisted.
-The British Foreign Office also assured that oil revenues are “vital to Russia’s war economy, accounting for around a quarter of the entire Russian budget in 2023.”
“Tackling the oil companies will deplete Russia’s war chest and every ruble we take out of Putin’s hands will help save Ukrainian lives,” said British Foreign Minister David Lammy.
Washington also announced sanctions on Friday against nearly 200 oil tankers and LNG tankers operating from Russia and presented as being part of Moscow’s “ghost fleet”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed American and British measures which “deal a significant blow to the financial foundation of the Russian war machine”.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
