Thread by @maria_shagina

The US has imposed a wide-ranging sanctions package on Russia's equally wide-ranging "harmful foreign activities" today. A few thoughts in a detailed thread🧵:
whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

The aim of the latest sanctions is deterrence: to send a signal that "the United States will impose costs in a strategic and economically impactful manner on Russia IF it continues or escalates its destabilizing international actions."

Destabilizing int actions are defined quite broadly: 1) undermining the conduct of free and fair democratic elections; 2) facilitating malicious cyber activities; 3) fostering/using transnational corruption to influence foreign governments;...

4) pursuing extraterritorial activities targeting dissidents or journalists; 5) undermining security in countries and regions important to US national security; 6) violating well-established principles of int law, incl. respect for the territorial integrity of states.

Thus, the sanctions are tied to Russia’s election interference and disinfo campaign in the US and elsewhere; the cyber attack on SolarWinds; the Afghanistan bounties, annexation of Crimea in 2014, among other transgressions.

This is quite a lot of "harmful foreign activities" in one batch which makes it hard to delineate them, hold Russia accountable and lift them if there is compliance.

But more importantly, the severity of sanctions doesn't seem to match the intent of imposing costs in an "economically impactful manner".
Why? - limited sanctions on Russian sovereign debt with carve-outs; no sanctions on oligarchs; no sanctions on SOEs/banks.

What measures have been imposed?
➡️For disinfo activities and interference in the 2020 US elections:
- sanctions on 16 entities & 16 individuals, incl. First Deputy Chief of Staff Gromov, 4 disinfo outlets;
- Yevgeniy Prigozhin's network in Africa
home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…

➡️For the occupation of Crimea: 5 individuals & 3 entities, connected to the construction of the Kerch Bridge and for severe human rights abuses against the local population.
home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…

➡️For Russia's malign activities:
- primary-market sanctions on the purchase of rouble/non-rouble Russian bonds issued after June 14;
- 5 entities in the technology sector supporting intel services;
- announcing the SVR responsible for the SolarWinds hack
home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…

A number of "unseen" measures were also announced, but hidden from the public eye those measures are unlikely to contribute to deterrence and add to the perception that Biden will be tough on Russia.