Sour over Syria: American senators attack Russian banks
● In cold war style, US Senators have urged the Obama administration to freeze assets of three major Russian banks, ban their activities in the US, and deny employees’ entry into the country on the suspicion they are doing business with the Assad regime.
● Having failed to galvanize allies for military action, and politically trumped by President Putin’s proposal for peaceful intervention in Syria, American congressmen have now turned to soft power to regain a grip on the Syria conflict. The senators are blaming Russia’s banking giants VTB, Gazprombank, and Vnesheconombank -the state development bank known as VEB– for ‘undermining’ UN sanctions by ‘aiding Assad’.
● “We can freeze their assets. We can stop them from doing business in the United States, prevent their employees from traveling here and, in effect, impose very heavy financial pain on the Russians,” Blumenthal said.
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