Following the invasion of Russian forces in pro-Russian separatist regions of Ukraine, President Biden announced a first "tranche" of sanctions this afternoon on Russia's sovereign debt, on the major Russian bank VEB, and a military bank. Individual Russians in Russian thug Vladimir Putin's crime syndicate will be hit with sanctions in the days ahead, Biden saying that those corrupt oligarchs "share the corrupt gains of the Kremlin's policies, and so they ought to share in the pain as well."
The banking sanctions effectively cut those entities off from transactions involving U.S. dollars, which are the global reserve currency. By imposing sanctions on Russia's sovereign debt, the U.S. has cut off Russia from Western debt markets and blocked it from re-negotiating its sovereign debt for better rates.
It's not clear what the "red line" is for imposing the full array of sanctions that Biden and its allies have been promising, since Russian forces have now crossed into Ukraine. Germany's action earlier today to suspend certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will damage Russia's economy by denying it gas revenues, as other allies are imposing initial sanctions on Putin's Russia for their aggression.
