With Russia's military knocking on Ukraine's door, President Barack Obama has enacted sanctions aimed at isolating Russia both financially and politically.
Obama issued an executive order aimed at those the administration determines have contributed to the destabilization of Ukraine. The order essentially freezes the U.S.-based assets of responsible parties and denies them access to the country while the military standoff between Russia and Ukraine persists.
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Several Obama administration officials briefed reporters on the new executive order Thursday morning. They described it as a "powerful and flexible tool" that the administration can use against anyone who undermines democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine, misappropriates state assets or claims state authority without authorization from the government in Kiev, as well as anyone who threatens the country's peace, stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity.
"We can calibrate our sanctions and our actions based on what the Russians do," one official said. "Obviously, were they to de-escalate the situation — pull back into their base — that would affect our calculus as to how we move forward."
The State Department and Treasury Department will be tasked with determining which specific persons and entities to hit with the sanctions. In addition to those determined to be direct actors in the crisis, the administration reserved the right to impose the same sanctions against "derivative" actors, or those who are associated with the responsible parties.
"We're not going to accept a status quo in which Russia can violate the sovereignty of its neighbors with some type of impunity," an administration official said.
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Administration officials reiterated their stance that placing international monitors in Ukraine during this time of political turmoil is "the best way to assure that the rights of all Ukrainians are being protected, including ethnic Russians," and said that a team from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) had already arrived in the country to do so.
The administration said it won't release the names of those who've had their visas restricted or revoked. A copy of Obama's executive order is embedded below.
Obama Executive Order on Ukraine

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