class in russia feel the pain personally? it s clear he doesn t care that much about his people. it s clear he doesn t care much about the russian economy. it s also clear he cares about his own net worth and the net worth of his friends. what would be the sanctions that the united states and the allies could undertake that would most bite the oligarch class including putin? sure. well, you ve hit the nail on the head because the power and money in russia is really only held by a very small group of men. those are the men that need to be targeted and frankly europe has lagged behind targeting them. the uk announced additional sanctions on oligarchs today, but they re really behind on that. for years, they ve been able to buy up property and real estate and put their assets and establish businesses in london, monaco, all over europe, really. we re going to need to lead on
in terms of trying to dissuade put friend his advance. that s right, boris, historically, they haven t been very effective and i m doubtful about sanctions on russia. sanctions are predicated if we cause enough for the oligarchs that they would push putin to change his policy. that s an misunderstanding of the oligarchs today. those oligarchs that have that political power are the ones that putin crushed. that s how he came into power. many of the oligarchs share putin s vision. they re not going to go against him, they re going to accept a good deal of sacrifice before they consider that. they re just not effective in general. we should have put s.w.i.f.t. in place before. it should have been used as a deterrent. i m deeply concerned that it will take months or a year before these sanctions hit and
reallocated to another bank. when you look at the sanctions on their economic actors, sanctions avoided the energy sector, which is the main pocket for putin. we saw sanctions on oligarchs today, but for some reason, of who is a very close ally to putin, chelsea football club has a lot of companies here in the united states he has three steel companies in the united states, he is not on the sanction list, so we keep begging the world to be stronger in the reaction, but unfortunately so far we are seeing that everybody is trying to protect their economy, that are worth more than ukraine lives. alexandra, perhaps joe biden, the president of the united states is watching, what is your message to him? please, support ukrainian children, women who are dying right now, thousands of them i directional. we need a no fly zone just to protect our civilian population.
and it is bound to get more bloody and brutal, david. and martha, i know you re learning more tonight about what your sources at the pentagon believe about vladimir putin, perhaps his state of mind and you ve learned that he s gone to the military command center several times, demanding repeated updates? reporter: he has. putin is described as erratic, but totally intent on seeing this war through. a senior official says he is spending more time in the military command center, basically a bunker under the kremlin, asking for constant updates on the fight, david. martha raddatz with us from washington tonight. martha, thank you. and tonight, of course, tightening the squeeze on vladimir putin s inner circle. president biden targeting a new group of oligarchs today, as well as some of their relatives and close associates, blocking their travel to the u.s., moving to seize their assets, yachts, and jets seized. while inside russia tonight, the ruble has now lost half of its value.
people that mueller has now begun to put under the microscope. one aspect of u.s. law is that it s illegal for a foreign citizen to donate to a u.s. election to contribute. it s also illegal to use a straw person. so for say a russian foreign donor who can t donate himself to work through an american citizen, to just funnel money into a presidential or other campaign. there s some indication mueller may be looking at conduct like that so i wonder if samnctions will match up with a future mueller indictment. mueller charged paul manafort with i think we re up to two dozen charges. paul manafort offered to give one of these indicted oligarchs today, oleg deripaska, a little behind-the-scenes briefing during the republican convention. these were people that were extremely close to the trump