The US is imposing new sanctions against Russia

US President Barack Obama in an emergency statement announced the introduction of new sanctions against Russia in connection with the annexation of Crimea. "We are imposing new sanctions against officials, individuals and one of the Russian banks," the American leader Gazeta.ru reports . Obama also said that he signed a document "according to which sanctions can be imposed against entire sectors of the Russian economy."

“Over the past days, we have seen an illegal referendum in the Crimea, a threat to the Ukrainian military. It was all the choice of the Russian government,” the US President explained his decision.

Obama assured that the United States intends to continue assistance to Ukraine. “I urge the Congress to adopt the appropriate law,” the president said. “It’s just that the words of support are insufficient.” Ukrainians must independently decide their fate, emphasized the American leader.

The US President also confirmed the duties of his state regarding NATO allies. At the same time, he noticed that "Russia still has a path that solves problems with the help of diplomacy."

Later on Thursday, the names of the new defendants in the sanctions listwere published on the website of the US Treasury. All of them are forbidden to enter the United States, and their assets in the United States are frozen. In total, the list of 20 people, including the State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin, the leader of the Fair Russia Sergey Mironov, the deputy-unineros Sergey Zheleznyak, the head of the presidential administration Sergey Ivanov, the assistant to the president Andrei Fursenko, the Presidential Affairs Vladimir Kozhin, the ex-prime minister of the USSR Nikolai Ryzhinov, the head of the Russian Railways, oligarchs Yuri Kovalchuk, Arkadia And Boris Rotenbergs, Gennady Timchenko.

In addition, sanctions were imposed against the Bank "Russia".

Most of the persons to whom sanctions were applied on Thursday were mentioned on the list, which the leader of the Party of Progress Alexei Navalny cited in his article “How to punish Putin” , published the day before in The New York Times. Navalny noted that many of the defendants in his list are included in the immediate environment of President Vladimir Putin.

On March 20, the State Duma by the overwhelming majority of votes ratified the annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia. For this, 445 members of the lower house out of 450 spoke. After the ratification, the contract entered into force. The State Duma also adopted in the first reading the draft Federal Constitutional Law "On the adoption of new constituent entities of the Republic of Crimea and the city of federal significance of Sevastopol in the Russian Federation in the Russian Federation of the Republic of Crimea." Both documents were introduced to the Lower Chamber by President Vladimir Putin.

On the eve of Obamaexcluded the possibility of US military intervention in the situation in Ukraine . “There is another way, and, I think, even Ukrainians admit that our armed confrontation with Russia will be inappropriate and will not bring benefits to Ukraine itself,” the US president said.

Obama called the introduction of additional economic sanctions to the United States reaction to the actions of Russia in Ukraine. "We intend to mobilize all our diplomatic resources to make sure that we have a strong international coalition that sends a clear signal," he said.

The Permanent Representative of the United States at the UN Samantha Power also stated at a meeting of the Security Council of an international organization about the possibility of new sanctions in response to aggression and the ongoing provocations of Russia in Ukraine. “What happened in Crimea should not repeat in other parts of Ukraine,” Power emphasized.

On Monday, the USA, Canada and the European Union have already imposed sanctions against a number of Russian and Crimean officials. In particular, Obama signed a document on blocking assets and introducing visa restrictions for 11 Russian and Ukrainian citizens, responsible, according to Washington, for Russia's actions in Crimea.