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    Justice Dept. Charges Russian Oligarch With Violating Sanctions

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    WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it had charged a Russian oligarch with violating U.S. sanctions and unveiled additional measures intended to counter Russian money laundering and disrupt online criminal networks in an effort to enforce financial penalties on Moscow.The moves came as the United States has ratcheted up pressure on the Kremlin and some of the wealthiest Russians in light of growing evidence of atrocities in Ukraine and as Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said the United States was helping its European partners investigate potential war crimes.The oligarch, Konstantin Malofeev, 47, is widely considered one of Russia’s most influential business moguls — he is said to have deep ties to President Vladimir V. Putin — and is among the more prominent conservatives in the country’s Kremlin-allied elite. (The indictment renders his surname as Malofeyev.)The actions demonstrated the reach of a task force created last month to find and seize the assets of wealthy Russians who violate U.S. sanctions on Russia, and the penalties appeared meant to enforce the far-reaching economic sanctions that the United States has imposed along with European allies.“The Justice Department will use every available tool to find you, disrupt your plots and hold you accountable,” Mr. Garland said, adding that officials had moved “to prosecute criminal Russian activity.” He pointed to the seizure this week of a $90 million yacht owned by Viktor F. Vekselberg, who was previously targeted with sanctions over Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.Mr. Garland said law enforcement was also pursuing Mr. Malofeev for illegally transferring money in violation of sanctions.The criminal charges against Mr. Malofeev, which were unsealed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, follow an indictment filed there in March against a former Fox News employee, John Hanick. Mr. Hanick, an American citizen, is accused of working for the oligarch from 2013 to 2017, and was arrested in February in London.Justice Department officials said in a statement on Wednesday that the charges against Mr. Malofeev were in connection with his hiring of Mr. Hanick “to work for him in operating television networks in Russia and Greece and attempting to acquire a television network in Bulgaria.”The U.S. Treasury Department, in imposing sanctions on Mr. Malofeev in December 2014, called him “one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea.”Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement on Wednesday that the sanctions barred Mr. Malofeev from paying or receiving services from American citizens, or from conducting transactions with his property in the United States.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4U.N. meeting. More

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    As Biden Pleads for More Covid Aid, States Are Awash in Federal Dollars

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    States pushed back on a plan to take back some of their stimulus money to fund President Biden’s emergency spending request. Now Congress is trying to find other ways to offset the cost.FRANKFORT, Ky. — Gov. Andy Beshear has been toting oversize checks around his state in recent weeks, handing them out to city and county officials for desperately needed water improvements.The tiny city of Mortons Gap got $109,000 to bring running water to six families who do not have it. The people of Martin County, whose water has been too contaminated to drink since a coal slurry spill two decades ago, got $411,000. The checks bear Mr. Beshear’s signature, but the money comes from the federal government, part of a huge infusion of coronavirus relief aid that is helping to fuel record budget surpluses in Kentucky and many other states.Therein lies a Washington controversy. The funds, which Congress approved at a moment when the pandemic was still raging, are allowed to be used for far broader purposes than combating the virus, including water projects like those in Kentucky. Most states will get another round of “fiscal recovery funds” — part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan — next month.But in Washington, Mr. Biden is out of money to pay for the most basic means of protecting people during the pandemic — medications, vaccines, testing and reimbursement for care. Republicans have refused to sign off on new spending, citing the state recovery funds as an example of money that could be repurposed for urgent national priorities.“These states are awash in money — everybody from Kentucky to California,” said Scott Jennings, a former aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. “People are like: ‘We’ve printed all this money; we’ve sent it out. These states have these massive surpluses, and now you need more?’”Republicans were never fans of Mr. Biden’s rescue plan, which Democrats muscled through Congress without their support. Despite the many ways it is benefiting his state, Mr. McConnell once called it a “multitrillion-dollar, nontargeted Band-Aid” that would dump “another huge mountain of debt on our grandkids.”On Capitol Hill on Thursday, a day after Mr. Biden made a public appeal to Congress for more money, Senate Republicans and Democrats were nearing a deal on a $10 billion emergency aid package — less than half of Mr. Biden’s initial request. But they had not resolved crucial differences over the size and how to pay for it. Republicans want to use unspent money already approved by Congress, but the parties have been unable to agree on which programs should be tapped.Since the outset of the pandemic, the Trump and Biden administrations have injected $5 trillion into the American economy, including the rescue plan. With midterm elections approaching, the gush of federal stimulus spending will draw even greater scrutiny as Republicans accuse Democrats of wasting funds and fueling inflation, and demand a precise accounting of how the money has been spent.David Adkins, the executive director and chief executive of the Council of State Governments, said such questions were inevitable now that policymakers could catch their collective breath.“We have to lean into the notion that states are laboratories of democracy,” Mr. Adkins said. “Some of these things will fail; some of this money will not be spent well. But that is the nature of trying to navigate disruptive times.”The rescue plan set aside $195 billion to help states recover from the economic and health effects of the pandemic. When Mr. Biden made his initial aid request, senior lawmakers in both parties negotiated a plan to pay for it partly by taking back $7 billion from states, as part of a $1.5 trillion spending bill.Governors and rank-and-file Democrats balked, saying that to do so would disproportionately hurt the 31 states that have not yet gotten all their rescue funds, and the deal fell apart. Now it appears the state funds will be spared, though the fracas has cast a sharp spotlight on how the fiscal recovery funds are being spent.“I was never for giving this money to the states, but I was always of the belief that once you gave it to them, politics would not allow you to get it back,” Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the top Republican on the subcommittee that controls health spending, said in a recent interview.All told, the White House says 93 percent of the American Rescue Plan dollars that are currently available have been “legally obligated,” meaning they have either already been spent or are committed to being spent.Most states have either started spending their fiscal recovery funds, or have plans to do so. A recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that while most states are still developing budgets for the upcoming fiscal year, states have already budgeted 78 percent of their fiscal recovery fund allocation.Kentucky, where Mr. Beshear, a Democrat, is promoting record job growth and economic boom times, ended 2021 with a record $1.1 billion surplus, and another surplus is expected this year. The state has already received $1.1 billion in federal funds and expects another $1 billion in May. It is spending the money on broadband, bolstering tourism and shoring up the unemployment insurance fund as well as coronavirus testing, in addition to water improvements.Martin County recently received $411,000 in federal stimulus funds to help pay for desperately needed water improvements.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times“These dollars are too important and too transformational to get caught up in a partisan fight,” Mr. Beshear said in an interview, adding: “These are dollars that are helping us as we emerge from Covid. We’ve got a choice to limp out of the pandemic or sprint out of the pandemic, and cutting off this aid only hurts the people that need it.”Congress specified four broad purposes for the money: to respond to the pandemic’s health and economic impacts; to provide bonus pay to essential workers; to prevent cuts in public services; and to invest in sewer, water or broadband infrastructure. But states can also use the funds to replace lost revenues, which gives them great flexibility in spending the money.Arkansas, for instance, has awarded $374,000 to a rape crisis center; $6.3 million to the Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault; and another $6.3 million to the Arkansas Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs. But the bulk of the money has gone toward improving broadband access and addressing the needs of the health care system.“The Omicron variant came in, cases skyrocketed, hospitals filled up and so we had to utilize a significant amount of our ARPA money for expanding hospital space, home testing and other public health response,” said Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, using the acronym for the rescue plan. “So that’s obviously the first responsibility, and then we looked at these other needs.”Other states are using the money in ways that are only tangentially related to Covid-19, but that are permissible under guidelines issued by the Treasury Department.Alabama devoted $400 million of its allocation, or roughly one-fifth, to building two new prisons, despite a public outcry from advocates for racial justice and civil liberties. Florida devoted $2 billion, nearly one-quarter of its $8.8 billion allotment, to highway construction — a decision that has drawn criticism from the nonpartisan Florida Policy Institute.“The intended purpose of the American Rescue Plan Act dollars was to ensure that individuals and communities could recover from the pandemic, and I think in many ways there were better uses for this money,” said Esteban Leonardo Santis, the group’s tax and revenue analyst.Twenty states, including Kentucky, spent a total of $15 billion to build up their depleted unemployment insurance trust funds. Independent analysts say that is effectively a tax break for businesses, which otherwise may have had to make up for the lost revenues. But Mr. Beshear defended it, saying that Kentucky businesses stepped up during the pandemic. A local Toyota plant made face shields, and bourbon distillers manufactured hand sanitizer, he said.The governor’s Twitter feed is rife with photos of big checks and smiling city and county officials; he is running for re-election in 2023.“If there’s one thing a governor knows how to do, it’s drive around their state and hand out huge checks and cut big ribbons with oversized scissors,” Mr. Jennings said. “They’re like game show hosts out there.”Chris McDaniel, a Kentucky state senator, spent much of this week immersed in budget talks, including planning how to use Kentucky’s next tranche of fiscal recovery funds.Luke Sharrett for The New York TimesExperts say, and the White House acknowledges, that the fiscal recovery funds have helped create state budget surpluses. Gene B. Sperling, a senior adviser to the president who is overseeing the American Rescue Plan, said the surpluses were proof that Mr. Biden’s stimulus package was working — and this was no time to pare back.“Ensuring that states and localities have a cushion for some pretty serious bumps in the road is smart policy,” Mr. Sperling said, “and a lesson learned from what happened after the Great Recession.”But those surpluses are likely to be temporary, and how states are using them has played into the controversy over Covid relief funds. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says 14 states are using temporary budget surpluses “to call for costly and permanent tax cuts targeted more to wealthy people” — a move the center described as a “bad choice.”Here in Frankfort, the state capital, Kentucky lawmakers in a hurry to wrap up their 2022 legislative session were working on pushing through a hefty income tax cut this week. But a proposal to use the state’s budget surplus to give Kentuckians a tax rebate of up to $500 seemed unlikely to pass, said its author, State Senator Chris McDaniel, the appropriations committee chairman.Mr. McDaniel, a Republican, spent much of this week immersed in budget talks, including planning how to use Kentucky’s next tranche of fiscal recovery funds. Another $1 billion is coming, and despite some philosophical misgivings, he said he saw no reason not to spend it.“I believe firmly that it was too much money that came down,” Mr. McDaniel said. “But I also believe that Kentuckians will bear the tax burden eventually, just like everyone else down the line, and I am not going to disadvantage future Kentuckians out of a point of philosophical pride.”Emily Cochrane More

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    Biden Invokes Cold War Statute to Boost Critical Mineral Supply

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    The action aims to enhance American production of crucial materials for electric vehicles, defense systems and other technologies.WASHINGTON — President Biden took steps on Thursday to try to increase domestic production of critical minerals and metals needed for advanced technologies like electric vehicles, in an attempt to reduce America’s reliance on foreign suppliers.Mr. Biden invoked the Defense Production Act, a move that will give the government more avenues to provide support for the mining, processing and recycling of critical materials, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese. Those are used to make large-capacity batteries for electric cars and clean-energy storage systems. Yet except for a handful of mines and facilities, they are almost exclusively produced outside the United States.“We need to end our long-term reliance on China and other countries for inputs that will power the future,” Mr. Biden said during remarks at the White House, where he also announced the release of one million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.The Defense Production Act is a Cold War-era statute that gives the president access to funding and other enhanced powers to shore up the American industrial base and ensure the private sector has the necessary resources to defend national security and face emergencies.In a determination issued Thursday, the president said that the United States depended on “unreliable foreign sources” for many materials necessary for transitioning to the use of clean energy, and that demand for such materials was projected to increase exponentially.Mr. Biden directed his secretary of defense to bolster the critical mineral supply by supporting feasibility studies for new projects, encouraging waste reclamation at existing sites, and modernizing or increasing production at domestic mines for lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and other so-called critical minerals.The secretary of defense would also conduct a survey of the domestic industrial base for critical minerals and submit that to the president and Congress, the presidential determination said.A person familiar with the matter said the actions being contemplated wouldn’t be loans or direct purchases of minerals, but rather funding studies and the expansion or modernization of new and existing sites.The administration will also review potential further uses of the act in relation to the energy sector, according to a White House announcement on Thursday.The United States imported more than half its supply of at least 46 minerals in 2020, and all of its supply of 17 of them, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Many of the materials come from China, which leads the world in lithium ion battery manufacturing and has been known to shut off exports of certain products in times of political tensions, including rare earth minerals.The Biden administration has warned that a dependence on foreign materials poses a threat to America’s security, and promised to expand domestic supplies of semiconductors, batteries and pharmaceuticals, among other goods. While the United States does have some unexplored deposits of nickel, cobalt and other crucial minerals and metals, developing mines and processing sites can take many years. Two-thirds of the world’s entire production of cobalt is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Chinese companies owned or financed 15 of the 19 largest mines as of 2020.But bipartisan support for expanding American mining and processing of battery components has grown in recent years. In a March 11 letter to Mr. Biden, senators including Lisa Murkowski, a Republican of Alaska, and Joe Manchin III, a Democrat of West Virginia, proposed invoking the Defense Production Act to accelerate domestic production of the components of lithium-ion battery materials, particularly graphite, manganese, cobalt, nickel and lithium.Todd M. Malan, the head of climate strategy for Talon Metals, which is developing a nickel mine in Minnesota, said Washington had reached a bipartisan consensus around providing more support for the domestic mining of electric vehicle battery minerals “driven by concern about reliance on Russia and China for battery materials as well as the energy transition imperative.”But some domestic developments may face opposition from environmentalists in Mr. Biden’s own party.Representative Raúl M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who chairs the Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement Wednesday that mining companies were “making opportunistic pleas to advance a decades-old mining agenda that lets polluters off the hook and leaves Americans suffering the consequences.”“Fast-tracking mining under antiquated standards that put our public health, wilderness, and sacred sites at risk of permanent damage just isn’t the answer,” he added.Dionne Searcey More

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    U.S. Levels New Sanctions on Russian Tech Companies

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    WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department on Thursday leveled new sanctions on Russian technology companies and illicit procurement networks that the country is using to evade existing sanctions, expanding the Biden administration’s effort to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine by crippling its economy.The new measures reflect the challenge that the United States and its allies continue to face in enforcing restrictions that have been imposed to cut off Russia’s central bank, financial institutions and oligarchs from the global financial system, and the need to disrupt Russian supply chains and efforts to conceal transactions.“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,” the Treasury secretary, Janet L. Yellen, said in a statement. “We will continue to target Putin’s war machine with sanctions from every angle until this senseless war of choice is over.”Among the 34 organizations and individuals targeted are Serniya and Sertal, Moscow-based companies that illicitly procure dual-use equipment and technology for Russia’s defense sector.The Treasury Department is also imposing sanctions on several technology companies that produce computer hardware, software and microelectronics that are used by Russia’s defense sector. Among them is Joint Stock Company Mikron, Russia’s largest chip-maker.Adewale Adeyemo, the deputy Treasury secretary, foreshadowed the sanctions during a speech on Tuesday, when he said that Russia’s military industrial sector would be the next to face restrictions.“We are planning to target additional sectors that are critical to the Kremlin’s ability to operate its war machine, where a loss of access will ultimately undermine Russia’s ability to build and maintain the tools of war that rely on these inputs,” Mr. Adeyemo said in his speech at Chatham House, an international affairs think tank in London. “In addition to sanctioning companies in sectors that enable the Kremlin’s malign activities, we also plan to take actions to disrupt their critical supply chains.” More

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    Americans, especially Republicans, are getting more worried about inflation.

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    Americans are more worried about inflation than at any point since 1985, and that concern is quickly escalating, according to a new poll, a potential problem for Democrats and the White House ahead of the midterm elections in November.A Gallup poll released Tuesday showed that rising prices were the No. 1 economic concern for Americans, with 17 percent calling inflation the “nation’s most important problem.”Inflation stress divided slightly among income groups — 63 percent of adults earning $40,000 or less were very concerned, compared with 58 percent of those earning $100,000 or more — and starkly along political lines. About 79 percent of Republicans were seriously worried about inflation, versus 35 percent of Democrats.“That reflects the ongoing phenomenon we’re seeing in polarization,” said Lydia Saad, director of U.S. social research at Gallup. She noted that people increasingly answered economic questions differently when their party controlled the White House, and often in a way that reflected the administration’s messaging. “Democrats are just going to downplay problems, just like Republicans did when Trump was in office,” she said.President Biden’s administration initially expected rapid inflation to fade. As it has lingered, the White House has switched to arguing that it is part of a global phenomenon and has been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That is accurate but probably not the full story, since inflation in the United States is higher than in many other developed economies.Prices in the United States rose 7.9 percent in the 12 months through February, according to the latest reading of the Consumer Price Index released this month. That was the highest level of inflation since early 1982.Ms. Saad said it might be a “silver lining” that the worry index was lower now than at the start of the 1980s, when about half of American adults ranked rising prices as the nation’s top problem. Inflation had been elevated for years back then, peaking at about 14.6 percent in 1980.Even so, rising prices have been undermining confidence in the overall economy, according to the Gallup numbers and other consumer sentiment readings. Survey data from the University of Michigan shows that Republicans have been more pessimistic about the economy than at any point since 1980. Democrats, while more optimistic, were less confident in March than they had been at any point since Mr. Biden’s 2020 election victory. More

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    Biden to Include Minimum Tax on Billionaires in Budget Proposal

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    The tax would require that American households worth more than $100 million pay a rate of at least 20 percent on their full income, as well as unrealized gains in the value of liquid assets like stocks.WASHINGTON — The White House will ask Congress on Monday to pass a new minimum tax on billionaires as part of a budget proposal intended to revitalize President Biden’s domestic agenda and reduce the deficit.The tax would require that American households worth more than $100 million pay a rate of at least 20 percent on their full income, as well as unrealized gains in the value of their liquid assets, such as stocks, bonds and cash, which can accumulate value for years but are taxed only when they are sold.Mr. Biden’s proposal to impose a tax on billionaires is the first time he has explicitly called for a wealth tax. While many in his party have advocated taxes that target an individual’s wealth — not just income — Mr. Biden has largely steered clear of such proposals in favor of increasing the top marginal income tax rate, imposing a higher tax on capital gains and estates, and raising taxes on corporations.The “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax” would apply only to the top one-hundredth of 1 percent of American households, and over half of the revenue would come from those worth more than $1 billion. Those already paying more than 20 percent would not owe any additional taxes, although those paying below that level would have to pay the difference between their current tax rate and the new 20 percent rate.The payments of Mr. Biden’s minimum tax would also count toward the tax that billionaires would eventually need to pay on unrealized income from assets that are taxed only when they are sold for a profit.The tax proposal will be part of the Biden administration’s budget request for the next fiscal year, which the White House plans to release on Monday. In a document outlining the minimum tax, the White House called it “a prepayment of tax obligations these households will owe when they later realize their gains.”“This approach means that the very wealthiest Americans pay taxes as they go, just like everyone else,” the document said.As the administration grapples with worries over rising inflation, the White House also released a separate document on Saturday saying that Mr. Biden’s budget proposal would cut federal deficits by a total of more than $1 trillion over the next decade.The idea of imposing a wealth tax has gained traction since Mr. Biden was elected as Democrats have looked for ways to fund their sweeping climate and social policy agenda and ensure that the wealthiest Americans are paying their fair share.Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and the chairman of the Finance Committee, released separate proposals last year that would tax the wealthiest, albeit in different ways. Ms. Warren had championed the idea of a wealth tax in her unsuccessful presidential campaign.The decision by the administration to call for a wealth tax also reflects political realities over how to finance Mr. Biden’s economic agenda.Moderate Democrats, including Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have balked at raising the corporate tax rate or lifting the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 37 percent, leaving the party with few options to raise revenue.Still, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, slammed the idea of taxing billionaires after Mr. Wyden’s proposal to do so was released, although Mr. Manchin has since suggested he could support some type of billionaires’ tax.Legal questions about such a tax also abound, particularly whether a tax on wealth — rather than income — is constitutional. If Congress approves a wealth tax, there has been speculation that wealthy Americans could mount a legal challenge to the effort. More

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    Biden Plans Sanctions on Russian Lawmakers as He Heads to Europe

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    A chief goal of the meetings this week is to show that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will not lead to sniping and disagreement among the United States and its allies.WASHINGTON — President Biden will announce sanctions this week on hundreds of members of Russia’s lower house of Parliament, according to a White House official familiar with the announcement, as the United States and its allies reach for even stronger measures to punish President Vladimir V. Putin for his monthlong invasion of Ukraine.The announcement is scheduled to be made during a series of global summits in Europe on Thursday, when Mr. Biden will press Western leaders for even more aggressive economic actions against Russia as its forces continue to rain destruction on cities in Ukraine.In Brussels on Thursday, Mr. Biden and other leaders will announce a “next phase” of military assistance to Ukraine, new plans to expand and enforce economic sanctions, and an effort to further bolster NATO defenses along the border with Russia, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said on Tuesday.“The president is traveling to Europe to ensure we stay united, to cement our collective resolve, to send a powerful message that we are prepared and committed to this for as long as it takes,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters.Officials declined to be specific about the announcements, saying the president will wrap up the details of new sanctions and other steps during his deliberations in Brussels. But Mr. Biden faces a steep challenge as he works to confront Mr. Putin’s war, which Mr. Sullivan said “will not end easily or rapidly.”The sanctions on Russian lawmakers, which were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, will affect hundreds of members of the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, according to the official, who requested anonymity to discuss diplomatic deliberations that have not yet been publicly acknowledged.Earlier this month, the United States announced financial sanctions on 12 members of the Duma. The announcement on Thursday will go far beyond those sanctions in what one senior official called a “very sweeping” action. Another official said details of the sanctions were still being finalized.The NATO alliance has already pushed the limits of economic sanctions imposed by European countries, which are dependent on Russian energy. And the alliance has largely exhausted most of its military options — short of a direct confrontation with Russia, which Mr. Biden has said could result in World War III.That leaves the president and his counterparts with a relatively short list of announcements they can deliver on Thursday after three back-to-back, closed-door meetings. Mr. Sullivan said there will be “new designations, new targets” for sanctions inside Russia. And he said the United States would make new announcements about efforts to help European nations wean themselves off Russian energy.Still, the chief goal of the summits — which have come together in just a week’s time through diplomats in dozens of countries — may be a further public declaration that Mr. Putin’s invasion will not lead to sniping and disagreement among the allies.Despite Russia’s intention to “divide and weaken the West,” Mr. Sullivan said, the allies in Europe and elsewhere have remained “more united, more determined and more purposeful than at any point in recent memory.”A damaged residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday.Ivor Prickett for The New York TimesSo far, that unity has done little to limit the violence in Ukraine. The United States and Europe have already imposed the broadest array of economic sanctions ever on a country of Russia’s size and wealth, and there have been early signs that loopholes have blunted some of the bite that the sanctions on Russia’s central bank and major financial institutions were intended to have on its economy.Despite speculation that Russia might default on its sovereign debt last week, it was able to make interest payments on $117 million due on two bonds denominated in U.S. dollars. And after initially plunging to record lows this month, the ruble has since stabilized.Russia was able to avert default for now because of an exception built into the sanctions that allowed it to continue making payments in dollars through May 25. That loophole protects foreign investors and gives Russia more time to devastate Ukraine without feeling the full wrath of the sanctions.Meanwhile, although about half of Russia’s $640 billion in foreign reserves is frozen, it has been able to rebuild that by continuing to sell energy to Europe and other places.“The fact that Russia is generating a large trade and current account surplus because of energy exports means that Russia is generating a constant hard currency flow in euros and dollars,” said Robin Brooks, the chief economist at the Institute of International Finance. “If you’re looking at sanctions evasion or the effectiveness of sanctions, this was always a major loophole.”The president is scheduled to depart Washington on Wednesday morning before summits on Thursday with NATO, the Group of 7 nations and the European Council, a meeting of all 27 leaders of European Union countries. On Friday, Mr. Biden will head to Poland, where he will discuss the Ukrainian refugees who have flooded into the country since the start of the war. He will also visit with American troops stationed in Poland as part of NATO forces.Mr. Biden is expected to meet with President Andrzej Duda of Poland on Saturday before returning to the White House later that day.White House officials said a key part of the announcements in Brussels would be new enforcement measures aimed at making sure Russia is not able to evade the intended impact of sanctions.“That announcement will focus not just on adding new sanctions,” Mr. Sullivan said, “but on ensuring that there is a joint effort to crack down on evasion on sanctions-busting, on any attempt by any country to help Russia basically undermine, weaken or get around the sanctions.”He added later, “So stay tuned for that.”Sanctions experts have suggested that Western allies could allow Russian energy exports to continue but insist that payments be held in escrow accounts until Mr. Putin halts the invasion. That would borrow from the playbook the United States used with Iran, when it allowed some oil exports but required the revenue from those transactions to be held in accounts that could be used only to finance bilateral trade.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3A new diplomatic push. More