Russia’s sanctions list shows its true war is against America

It remains insufficiently understood that in attacking Ukraine, Russia is simultaneously waging war against the U.S. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaims Ukraine is merely a puppet of the West, denying its right to exist. Putin believes Russia is in an existential battle for survival. The severity of Moscow’s delusions and the length of this conflict means it has no inhibitions about using every instrument of force and violence in its wars against Kyiv and Washington. 

Thus, Moscow recently published a list of 500 prominent Americans recently added to its persona-non-grata list, bringing the total number of restricted Americans to 1,844. This is much more than a spiteful retaliation against Western sanctions. It is part of a massive campaign that ranges from the threats of a nuclear war to harassment of American diplomats by Russian intelligence in Europe to the attempted intimidation of American policymakers and experts who are the brains and the arms of the U.S. Russian policy. 

This list of the sanctioned members of the U.S. political establishment exposes how closely Russian’s intelligence service and foreign ministry monitor U.S. and Western policy leaders, strategists and analytical centers.  

The sanctions list reflects the Kremlin’s view of who America’s Russia’s policymakers are and is a standing provocation and threat directed against them. The list includes President Biden, former President Obama, Vice President Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Clearly, the names came from Putin and those closest to him, such as Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the security council.

The list features a bipartisan hodgepodge of senators and representatives chosen to inflame America’s domestic partisan divide, from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was likely singled out due to a deceptively edited video showing him appearing to celebrate the death of Russians. 

Deceased politicians like former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) made the cut, indicating it was likely prepared long in advance in line with Moscow’s views on the Ukrainian conflict. 

Allegedly anti-Russia celebrities such as Morgan Freeman, and prominent media personalities like late show host Stephen Colbert, Bret Stephens of The New York Times and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News weren’t forgotten. 

The list also targets individuals prosecuting the Jan. 6 insurrection — a full-throated Russian show of support for those who tried to overthrow the U.S. government. 

Leading members of U.S. think tanks such as RAND Corporation, the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution and others are also on the list. This includes RAND’s Barry Pavel, The Atlantic Council’s Alexander Mirtchev and Brookings Institute’s renowned Russia experts Angela Stent and Fiona Hill. These are people who stand for the values of democracy, human rights and rules-based international order, the values that the Russian leadership rejects.

The treaties Moscow broke to invade Ukraine, including the U.N. Charter and the Non-Proliferation Treaty, display its cynical attitude toward international law. If that wasn’t enough, to achieve its goals of intimidation and coercion, Russia uses provocations up to and including murder, even if its critics are abroad. Such actions display Moscow’s modus operandi abroad and show there’s more required from the West than financial and military support for Ukraine. Russia’s goal is simple: to frighten and intimidate.  

America cannot stay silent. Apart from more thorough measures against the assets of the Russian elite, we need to wage a much stronger global information war exposing the regime’s corruption, criminality and abuses of the Russian people. This should come with direct messaging to the Russian population and the Global South. The West also needs to shut down the networks of so-called “ghost ships” furnishing Russia with weapons and energy sales opportunities, which allow it to continue this war. 

Russia’s war against the West is intrinsic to the Putin regime’s survival and brings about its darkest impulses. We must learn from the French proverb “a la guerre comme a la guerre,” — “at war as at war.” It is time for the U.S. to take its gloves off and make the Russian regime feel the heat.

Stephen Blank, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is a former professor of Russian national security studies and national security affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and a former MacArthur fellow at the U.S. Army War College. Blank is an independent consultant focused on the geopolitics and geostrategy of the former Soviet Union, Russia and Eurasia.