According to a report by the New York Times, the United States has finally responded on Thursday to the military and economic threats Russia has made against Ukraine. The administration under US President Barack Obama announced that it will be imposing visa bans on officials and others who were involved in the moves that undermined the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Eastern European country.
The Times noted that the visa bans are the expanded version to the original ban imposed by the US against those who were involved in the violence that left dozens of anti-government protesters in Kiev killed in February this year. Aside from the new restrictions, Obama reportedly issued an executive order that would serve as legal basis in imposing such sanctions to Russian officials and other perpetrators guilty of such political transgressions.
"(The executive order) is a flexible tool that will allow us to sanction those who are most directly involved in destabilizing Ukraine, including the military intervention in Crimea. (It) does not preclude further steps should the situation deteriorate," part of the White House statement read.
When the newspaper asked senior officials at the White House regarding the number of people that would be affected with the sanctions, they refused to figures or other pertinent details, but an unnamed senior official confirmed that no foreign entities had been sanctioned under the legal measures.
The latest sanctions by the US certainly had strained its already tense relations with Russia, with the latter saying that it will also impose military and political sanctions against the US, the Times said.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Russia's human rights commissioner and a former ambassador to the United States Vladimir Lukin, who said, "The U.S. has the right, and we have the right to respond to it. But all that is, of course, not making me happy."
