Biden administration says it would punish Russian elites if Putin invades Ukraine

Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said on Sunday that the Biden administration will punish Russian elites with sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine. 

During an appearance on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Adeyemo told host ​​Margaret Brennan that the sanctions would cut off elites from the markets they care about most. 

“There are critical technologies that Russia is dependent on the United States and our allies on, technologies that Russia, that China does not have access to. Russian elites who we would cut off from the global financial system are not putting their money in China,” Adeyemo told Brennan. 

“They're putting their money in Europe and in the United States. And those elites, those who are helping President Putin make these decisions, we would cut them and their families off from the global financial system in ways that would limit their ability to do business in the ways they've done it in the past.”