WASHINGTON -- The Biden administration declared its Ukraine solidarity with fresh action and strong words Friday, piling new sanctions on Moscow and approving a new $2 billion weapons package to rearm Kyiv a year after Russia's invasion.
Including this latest package, the U.S. has now committed more than $32 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia's invasion.
Despite the U.S. and allies' continued efforts to bolster the Ukrainians, there are no signs of an endgame in the war, which seems destined to enter an even more complicated phase in the months ahead.
On the somber anniversary, President Joe Biden and fellow leaders from the Group of Seven allies that have been at the forefront of backing Ukraine stayed focused on a unified front.
"Our solidarity will never waver in standing with Ukraine, in supporting countries and people in need and in upholding the international order based on the rule of law," the G-7 leaders said in a joint statement after a virtual meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
As Ukraine mourned its war dead and vowed it would ultimately emerge victorious, the Pentagon unveiled its latest weapons package. It includes more ammunition, electronic warfare-detection equipment and other weapons to counter Russia's unmanned systems and several types of drones, including the upgraded Switchblade 600 Kamikaze.
The latest aid package uses the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative to provide funding for longer-term contracts to buy weapons and equipment.
Unlike the presidential drawdown authority that the Pentagon has used repeatedly over the past year to pull weapons from its own stocks and quickly ship them to Ukraine, the initiative-funded equipment could take a year or two to get to the battlefront. As a result, it will do little to help Ukraine prepare for an expected new offensive in the spring.
"Difficult times may lie ahead, but let us remain clear-eyed about what is at stake in Ukraine to ensure that a world of rules and rights is not replaced by one of tyranny and turmoil," U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
Biden said Friday in an ABC News interview that he's not ready to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. Zelenskyy has been pressing the U.S. and allies for jets, but White House officials have pushed back that they are not the weaponry that Ukrainians need in the near term.
"There is no basis on which there is a rationale, according to our military now to provide F-16s," Biden said. "I am ruling it out for now."
NEW SANCTIONS
Meanwhile, the White House said new sanctions hitting more than 200 people and entities will "further degrade Russia's economy and diminish its ability to wage war against Ukraine." The Biden administration will also further restrict exports to Russia and raise tariffs on some Russian products imported to the U.S.
"Now, not only does Ukraine stand, but the global coalition in support of Ukraine is stronger than ever, with the G-7 as its anchor," Biden said on Twitter after Friday's virtual meeting with Zelenskyy.
Still, as the conflict enters its second year, there are no indications that President Vladimir Putin will retreat from the conflict.
The Russian economy weathered sanctions better than expected in 2022, in part because of "the slow introduction of commodities sanctions," Moody's Investors Service reported Friday.
The Russian economy is expected to weaken in 2023, with its gross domestic product shrinking by 3% this year, according to the Moody's projection. The economy shrank 2.2% in 2022, far short of predictions of 15% or more that Biden administration officials had showcased at the start of the war.
Export controls and financial sanctions are gradually eroding Russia's industrial capacity, but oil and other energy exports last year allowed Putin to keep funding the war.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby acknowledged that Russia's economy was "showing some resilience," but he also said it's not clear that it "can be sustained for the long haul."
Of Putin, he said, "He has had to take some drastic measures to prop up his economy, to prop up his currency, including playing pretty aggressively with interest rates for instance."
The new sanctions introduced Friday by the U.S. Treasury Department hit Russian firms, banks, manufacturers and individuals, taking aim at entities that helped Russia evade earlier rounds. Russia's metals and mining sector are among those targeted in what the Treasury Department called one of the "most significant sanctions actions to date."
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, attending meetings Friday in India with fellow financial chiefs of the Group of 20 leading economies, called out Russian officials in attendance and insisted that the world's biggest economies must do more to support Ukraine.
"I urge the Russian officials here at the G-20 to understand that their continued work for the Kremlin makes them complicit in Putin's atrocities," Yellen said. "They bear responsibility for the lives and livelihoods being taken in Ukraine and the harm caused globally."
The U.S. State and Commerce departments, as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, also issued plans Friday to increase pressure on Russia. Those steps impose visa restrictions on 1,219 members of the Russian military, increase tariffs on Russian products such as metal, worth roughly $2.8 billion, and add nearly 90 Russian and third-country companies, including from China, to a list of identified sanction-evaders.
More than 30 countries representing more than half the world's economy have already imposed sanctions on Russia, making it the most sanctioned nation in the world.
The sanctions have imposed price caps on Russian oil and diesel, frozen Russian Central Bank funds and restricted access to SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
The U.S. and allies have directly sanctioned roughly 2,500 Russian firms, government officials, oligarchs and their families. The sanctions are depriving them of access to their American bank accounts and financial markets, preventing them from doing business with Americans, traveling to the U.S. and more.
Information for this article was contributed by Tara Copp, Aamer Madhani, Sibi Arasu and Jill Lawless of The Associated Press.