US expanding sanctions against Russia over Ukraine

US President Barack Obama on Thursday announced he would expand sanctions against Russia, targeting individuals who support the government and a bank with ties to them, and delivering on his warning earlier this week that the United States would ratchet up costs on Russia if it moved to annex the breakaway province of Crimea.

"The United States is today moving, as we said we would, to impose additional costs on Russia," Obama said in a statement on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving on a trip to Florida.

"These are all choices that the Russian government has made, choices that have been rejected by the international community," he said.

Obama also said he had signed a new executive order that would allow him to impose sanctions on Russian industrial sectors, presumably including its energy exports - a step that would greatly tighten the economic pressure on Russia.

The administration on Monday announced sanctions against seven Russian officials, including several close advisers to President Vladimir V Putin, as well as against separatists figures in Crimea. The executive order signed by President Obama laid the legal groundwork to punish Russian companies involved in the arms trade, as well as other officials who work with the Russian government. The administration is now moving on those fronts as well.

The new sanctions, which are coordinated with an expected imposition of new sanctions by the European Union, deepens the confrontation between the West and Russia. But it remains unclear whether any of this will put a brake on Russia, which has moved swiftly since the referendum in Crimea last Sunday to annex the province.

©2014 The New York Times News Service