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United States sanctions on Russia over its military operations in Ukraine can be reversed if Moscow changes its behaviour, a US Treasury official said, ahead of a major economic meeting in Washington this week.
"We always want to make sure that any sanctions that we put in place can at some point - if behaviour changes - be reversed in order to make sure that threat actor knows that once sanctions are put in place, the goal is behavioural change ultimately," US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a virtual discussion organized by the Peterson Institute for International Economics on Monday (local time). G20 finance chiefs and central bankers will meet in Washington under the Indonesian chairmanship. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have warned of the devastating costs the war is imposing on the global economy, especially through rising prices for energy and food at a time of high inflation. Western sanctions on Moscow have contributed to the price pressures, which are hitting the poorest countries the hardest. The US, along with the G7 nations and European Union (EU) has imposed severe and immediate economic costs on Russia for its "atrocities in Ukraine, including in Bucha". As per an official statement from the White House, as a part of mechanisms to hold Russia accountable for its actions in Ukraine, the US has announced economic measures to ban new investment in Russia and imposed severe financial sanctions on Russia's largest bank and several of its most critical state-owned enterprises and on Russian government officials including their family members. In the new economic cost, the US has announced full blocking sanctions on Russia's largest financial institution, Sberbank, and its largest private bank, Alfa Bank. This action will freeze any of Sberbank's and Alfa Bank's assets touching the US financial system and prohibit Americans from doing business with them. The US has also prohibited new investment in the Russian Federation as President Joe Biden will sign a new Executive Order (EO) that includes a prohibition on new investment in Russia by Americans wherever located, aimed at isolating Russia from the global economy. (ANI)
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