WASHINGTON, D. C. -- Ohio’s U.S. Senators agree that Russia and its leader, President Vladmir Putin, must face severe sanctions for declaring that parts of Ukraine are are independent countries and sending in his troops as so-called “peacekeepers.” They disagree on whether the United States has done enough.
Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman says the measures that President Joe Biden announced Tuesday -- which focus on cutting off Russian entities from the U.S. financial system -- aren’t adequate while Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown called them “maybe the strongest sanctions in my time in politics” and argued they’d cost Putin and his economy billions of dollars.
Biden on Tuesday announced that the Secretary of the Treasury would impose full blocking sanctions on two state-owned Russian financial institutions that service the Kremlin and Russian military, crimp Russian access to U.S. investors by barring Americans from buying debt issued by Russian government entities, and declared that Treasury Department could target any Russian financial institution for further sanctions. The White House noted that more than 80 percent of Russia’s daily foreign exchange transactions around the globe are in U.S. dollars, and roughly half of Russia’s international trade is conducted in dollars.
Biden also imposed blocking sanctions on five Russian oligarchs and their relatives who directly benefit from their Kremlin connections: Aleksandr Bortnikov (and his son, Denis), Sergei Kiriyenko (and his son, Vladimir), and Promsvyazbank CEO Petr Fradkov. In addition, he authorized additional movements of U.S. forces and equipment already stationed in Europe to strengthen the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Biden described his actions as the “first tranche of sanctions to impose costs on Russia,” and said they will escalate if Russia continues attacks in Ukraine.
“The United States and our Allies and partners are working in unison,” Biden said. “We’re united in our support of Ukraine. We’re united in our opposition to Russian aggression. And we’re united in our resolve to defend our NATO Alliance. And we’re united in our understanding of the urgency and seriousness of the threat Russia is making to global peace and stability.”
Portman released a statement Wednesday that called the sanctions “an important first step,” but said they didn’t go far enough. He applauded Germany’s decision to finally suspend certification of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia, but urged Biden and the international community to go further “to ensure the economic consequences will be damaging enough to the Russian economy to stop the aggression and avoid a dangerous escalation of the eight-year-old war in Ukraine.
“Two Russian financial institutions and a small number of individuals are targeted in this first round of sanctions,” said Portman, a former U.S. Trade Representative who co-chairs the Senate’s Ukraine Caucus “To create an effective deterrent, tougher sanctions must be expanded to other financial institutions and export controls must be implemented.”
Portman urged the global community to work with allies in Europe and Asia to impose export controls that would restrict the tools Russia needs to to manufacture and resupply its military. He said Taiwan, Japan and Singapore’s announcement that they’ll work with the United States to block key exports to Russia “was a welcome first step that must be expanded and implemented.
“We learned from Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 that unless sanctions are strong and multilateral they will not deter Russian aggression and malign activity,” Portman continued.
Brown, who chairs the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, applauded Portman’s leadership on Ukraine issues and said he agrees that strong, targeted sanctions are needed. But he described Biden’s sanctions as some of the strongest he’d ever seen.
“It’s aimed at Russian banks,” Brown told reporters on Wednesday. “It’s aimed at Russian oil companies. It’s aimed at Putin himself and the oligarchs that surround him. This will cost Putin and his economy billions of dollars. He will be a less rich man if he goes through with this because we are making sure he’s getting the message that the sanctions that we’re leveling against Russia, the Russian government and Russian big business will stay.”
Brown also criticized Republicans such as Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance, one of the crowded field vying to replace Portman, who maintain “what’s happening in Ukraine has nothing to do with our national security.” Brown said the United States used to have a bipartisan Ukraine policy, which some Republicans abandoned after former Republican President Donald Trump “did everything but sit in the lap of Putin.
“The former President was clearly rooting for Putin in the way he talks, and that’s meant a whole lot of Republican politicians around the country have moved away from that bipartisan effort to contain Russia,” Brown said. “We know if Russia goes into Ukraine and the world simply throws up our hands, then it’s Estonia, and Latvia and Lithuania. Then China goes into Taiwan. Who knows what’s next?”
Trump released a statement on Tuesday that said he knows Putin “very well, and he would never have done during the Trump Administration what he is doing now, no way!” Trump also denounced Biden’s sanctions as “weak.” On Wednesday, Trump released a statement that said “Putin is playing Biden like a drum. It is not a pretty thing to watch!”
Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate have been at odds for weeks over the type of sanctions Russia should face if it invaded Ukraine, abdicating that responsibility to Biden.. Unable to agree on legislation that would prescribe sanctions, it passed a resolution last week to express its support for an independent Ukraine and condemn Russian military aggression.
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