US Senator introduces bill to sanction Putin, Russian officials

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US Senator Marco Rubio introduced Friday a bill to sanction Russian President Vladimir Putin and several other Russian officials if any invasion of Ukraine was to take place.

"U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced the Deterring Authoritarian Hostilities Act of 2022, a bill to impose immediate and harsh personal sanctions on Vladimir Putin and the rest of the authoritarian leadership of Russia if Russian troops further invade Ukraine," the statement regarding the bill read.

The bill would, for the first time, the statement said, "impose sanctions on Putin himself, and the sectors of the Russian economy his regime depends on to personally enrich himself."

The Republican senator explained that the proposed legislation would not be "dependent" on US President Joe Biden to "decide what constitutes an incursion into Ukraine.

According to Rubio, a core part of any "strategy to force Vladimir Putin to back down is to make the consequences of an invasion extremely painful for the oligarchs that prop up his control of Russia," once again accusing the Russian president of actions US lawmakers are accused of themselves in both the red and blue parties.

He also accused President Biden of "not understanding" that the United States must "project strength and resolve" rather than weakness.

He called on his fellow senators to work with him on passing the bill "before it is too late."

These proposed sanctions come just a day after the EU officially extended the economic sanctions against Russia until July 31, 2022.

"The Council today decided to prolong the restrictive measures currently targeting specific economic sectors of the Russian Federation by six months, until 31 July 2022," the statement read.

Background

Allegedly, the decision follows the latest assessment of the state of implementation of the Minsk agreements signed in 2015 at the European Council of December 16, 2021.

The EU sanctions came just days after a fresh batch of US sanctions on a Russian firm, and several US lawmakers announced Wednesday they would be presenting a bill to sanction Moscow over tensions with Ukraine.

Russia is facing US-European allegations of a military buildup on its shared borders with Ukraine, which they claim amounts to 100,000 Russian troops.

The secretary of the Ukrainian Security and Defense Council said Thursday his country believed there was no immediate threat of a major Russian invasion. Similarly, Kyiv had denied in November Western reports of a Russian military buildup near its eastern border.

The sanctions also come despite attempts at mending the torn relations between Russia and the West through the Geneva talks with Washington on security guarantees over Ukraine.

Russia has been demanding a written commitment that Ukraine would never be able to join NATO and that the alliance would not place any military equipment in certain countries in the region surrounding Russia.

The Kremlin sees that it is best for Russian security that the alliance does not expand eastward and that Russia does not have any Western military activity in its vicinity.