Alwaght- The US administration will sanction Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top government officials in Moscow in response to Russia's military actions in Ukraine, the White House has announced on Friday.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki made the announcement after the European Union said earlier in the day that it would impose sanctions on Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
"President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov are on the list of sanctioned people together with the remaining members of the Duma (Russian parliament) who are supporting this aggression," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borell told journalists.
"Let me flag that the only leaders in the world that are sanctioned by the European Union are Assad from Syria, Lukashenko from Belarus and now Putin from Russia," the EU's top diplomat added.
"We are now listing President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov as well," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said as she joined her EU counterparts to agree on the new sanctions.
"They are responsible for the deaths of innocent people in Ukraine, and for trampling on the international system. We, as Europeans, do not accept that."
The White House's Psaki said President Joe Biden spoke with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“The president’s strong view and strong principle from the beginning of this conflict… has been to take action in steps in alignment with our European partners and this is evidence of that,” Psaki said.
Biden on Thursday unveiled harsh new sanctions on Russia but he did not say he would sanction Putin directly.
Sanctioning a world leader directly is a rare step that comes after Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine’s Donbas region to “defend people” subjected to "genocide" there against government forces, stressing that Moscow has “no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory.”
Russia-West relations at 'point of no return'
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said relations between Russia and the West are approaching the point of no return, according to Russian media.
The imposition of sanctions against Putin and Lavrov reflects the West's "absolute impotence" when it comes to foreign policy, she said.
"The issue is that we have reached the line where the point of no return begins," Zakharova said.
The Biden administration has rolled out phased sanctions in recent days in response to the attacks on Ukraine.
Biden said the sanctions were meant to have a long-term impact on Russia and to minimize the impact on the US and its allies.
"Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences,” he said, laying out a set of measures that will "impose a severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time."
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said on Friday Putin is ready to dispatch a high-level delegation for talks with Ukraine in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the president was ready to "send a delegation at the level of representatives of Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry, and Presidential Administration to Minsk for negotiations with the Ukrainian delegation."
Minsk hosted previous peace negotiations on the Ukrainian crisis.
The move came as Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky called for direct talks with Putin in a video message earlier on Friday.
