By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on February 1, 2024
In February 2022, President Joe Biden announced “crippling sanctions” against Russia for invading Ukraine. These sanctions targeted Russian banks and billionaire oligarchs.
This week, international news agencies reported that Russian banks posted record profits in 2023. This news shows how Russia has weathered Biden’s “crippling sanctions."
Russian banks raked in 3.3tn rubles (£29bn) last year, the Russian Central Bank (CBR) announced on Tuesday.
This figure is up from just 200bn rubles in 2022, when profits fell almost 90 per cent due to Western sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As part of Biden’s international pressure campaign on Russia, authorities from around the world seized more than a half-dozen super-yachts belonging to billionaire oligarchs allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin. These seizures meant nothing to Putin.
Today, the war rages on, with no end in sight.
The Joe Biden administration and U.S. Congress have directed more than $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine (through July 31, 2023), which includes humanitarian, financial, and military support, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research institute.
Congressional Republicans are balking at sending more U.S. aid to Ukraine.
As a political Independent, I am balking, too.
Joe Biden does not have a clue about what he is doing in the world of foreign affairs. For example, Biden made a catastrophe out of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Biden is notoriously soft on Iran and its state-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East. He appears to be incapable of protecting America's national interests abroad or keeping her citizens safe in foreign countries.
Since October, Biden has enabled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ability to commit genocide against more than 25,000 innocent Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza. All world leaders know that Netanyahu is nothing but a "thug" with a prominent national government title.
Biden's southern border policy has been an unmitigated disaster. Nobody defends it.
With this in mind, it’s time for America to find another pathway forward on the war in Ukraine.