Hillary Clinton Demands ‘Even Higher Costs’ for Putin During Ukraine War

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated on Sunday that “now is the moment” for the US to “double down on the pressure” on Russia as its invasion of Ukraine continues.

“The only way we’re going to halt the murder and horror that we’re seeing unleashed in Ukraine and safeguard Europe and democracy is to do all we can to impose even larger consequences on Putin,” Clinton said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

She also stated that Russia should not be permitted to rejoin international organisations in which it has previously participated, such as the G20, a group of the world’s major countries that meets on a regular basis for summits.

“I believe there is an upcoming G20 event later this year that I would not allow Russia to attend, and if they insisted on literally showing up, I would hope for a significant, if not total boycott,” Clinton said, adding that there are additional Russian banks “that can be sanctioned and removed from the so-called SWIFT relationship.”

The SWIFT financial system connects major banks all around the world, and the US and its allies moved last month to exclude several Russian institutions from it in the aftermath of the Ukraine incursion.

Clinton went on to say that “there is a growing push for doing more on gas and oil.”

“Obviously, some of our best allies in Europe are frantically seeking to break free from their reliance on Russian energy—we need to accelerate, and I know the administration has been doing that, looking at greater deliveries of liquefied natural gas, for example,” she added.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden unveiled a proposal to tackle soaring gas prices, which have been exacerbated in part by sanctions put on the Russian economy by Western partners, by releasing 180 million barrels of oil into the market in the coming months.

Also on Thursday, the US Treasury imposed fresh penalties against 21 Russian tech businesses and 13 people accused of being “instrumental to the Russian Federation’s war machine.”

“Russia not only continues to violate the sovereignty of Ukraine with its unprovoked aggression, but also has escalated its attacks striking civilians and population centers,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said in a statement at the time. “We will continue to target Putin’s war machine with sanctions from every angle, until this senseless war of choice is over.”