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Sanctions to cut Russia from key technologies if Ukraine situation escalates - US Treasury

Adewale Adeyemo said that Russia's economy will suffer if they were to take an action to invade Ukraine

WASHINGTON, February 7. /TASS/. Western sanctions that could be imposed in the event of hypothetical Russian invasion of Ukraine would cut off Russia from key technologies, US Deputy Treasury Secretary Adewale Adeyemo said on CBS television on Sunday.

"We have designed a set of economic sanctions that would take on the Russian financial system <...> by cutting them off from key technologies," he said. "We would see Russia's economy suffer if they were to take an action to invade Ukraine."

Adeyemo said the potential restrictions would be "far more significant" than they were in 2014. Russia’s moving closer to China won’t help it to mitigate the consequences of the sanctions, the official said.

"China can't give Russia what they don't have," he said. "There are critical technologies that Russia is dependent on the United States and our allies on, technologies that Russia, that China does not have access to."

"Russian elites who we would cut off from the global financial system are not putting their money in China," Adeyemo went on to say. "They're putting their money in Europe and in the United States."

"We would cut them and their families off from the global financial system in ways that would limit their ability to do business in the ways they've done it in the past," he said.

"The range of actions that we are prepared to take <...> would have a significant impact," he said. "By the United States and Europe acting together, we put ourselves in a position where we not only would have an impact on the overall Russian economy, but we'd have a direct impact on President [Vladimir] Putin, who is tied to the Russian economy."

There has been a flurry of statements in the West and Kiev lately that Russia could invade Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they were unsubstantiated escalation and that Russia doesn’t threaten anyone. At the same time, he didn’t rule out provocations to corroborate these Western statements and warned that the use of force to resolve the crisis in southeastern Ukraine will have serious consequences.