President Obama on Thursday announced he would expand sanctions against Russia, targeting individuals who support the government and a bank with ties to these associates, delivering on his warning earlier this week that it would ratchet up costs on Russia if it moved to annex the breakaway province of Crimea.
“The United States is today moving, as we said we would, to impose additional costs on Russia,” Mr. Obama said in a statement on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving on a trip to Florida.
“These are all choices that the Russian government has made, choices that have rejected by the international community,” he said.
Mr. Obama also said he had signed a new executive order that would allow him to impose sanctions Russian industrial sectors, presumably including its energy exports – a step that would dramatically tighten the economic pressure on Russia.
The administration on Monday…
View original post 118 more words
