WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced additional sanctions against Russia’s central bank on Monday, a move that effectively prohibits Americans from doing any business with the bank as well as freezes assets within the United States.

These new measures will also be targeted at the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation, and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation.

According to a senior Biden Administration official who spoke under anonymity because he wanted to be able share Washington’s thoughts, the new sanctions would take effect right away.

The official told reporters that they had to take these steps before the markets opened. “The Russian Central Bank tried to move assets, and we knew this from the weekend.

Simply put, our strategy is to stop the Russian economy from falling behind. “As long as President Putin continues to invade Ukraine,” said the official.

American officials are also adding Kirill Dmitriev to their sanctions list, as well as Dmitriev’s direct investment fund.

After the U.S. and Canada announced over the weekend that they will restrict Russia’s access to their central bank reserves, this follows the EU, U.K, Canada, and the EU.

A second official from the administration said Monday that “No country can be sanctioned and Putin’s war-chest of $630 billion is irrelevant if it can be used to defend his currency.”

Canada and European allies agreed to a weekend of talks. remove key Russian banks from the interbank messaging systemSWIFT is an unusual step that will seperate the country from large parts of the global financial network.

Moscow’s exclusion form SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) means that Russian banks can’t securely communicate with other banks. Following developments in Iran’s nuclear program, SWIFT removed Iran from its database.

The story is still in development. Keep checking back for more updates.