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FILE - U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo speaks during an address at Brown University, March 15, 2022, in Providence, R.I. Just days before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, President Joe Biden quietly dispatched a team to European Union headquarters in Belgium. Raimondo said what ultimately drove the agreement to an export ban and the groundwork to immobilize about half the foreign holdings of Russia's central bank, was the threat of Putin's imminent attack on Ukraine. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
FILE - President Joe Biden speaks in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, March 18, 2022, in Washington. Biden quietly dispatched a team to NATO headquarters in Belgium just days before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. What emerged from the meetings was an export ban and the groundwork to immobilize about half the foreign holdings of Russia's central bank. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
FILE - The Russian flag flies outside the Embassy of Russia in Washington, Feb. 24, 2022. The United States and allies are stepping up sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)
FILE - Women look at a screen displaying exchange rate at a currency exchange office in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. In the days since the West imposed sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, ordinary Russians are feeling the painful effects — from payment systems that won't operate and problems withdrawing cash to not being able to purchase certain items. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)
People stand in line to withdraw money from an ATM of Alfa Bank in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. Russians flocked to banks and ATMs shortly after Russia launched an attack on Ukraine and the West announced crippling sanctions. (AP Photo)
FILE - U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo speaks during an address at Brown University, March 15, 2022, in Providence, R.I. Just days before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, President Joe Biden quietly dispatched a team to European Union headquarters in Belgium. Raimondo said what ultimately drove the agreement to an export ban and the groundwork to immobilize about half the foreign holdings of Russia's central bank, was the threat of Putin's imminent attack on Ukraine. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

The European Union headquarters in Belgium was dispatched by President Joe Biden just days before Russia invaded Ukraine.

These were not spy chiefs or generals, but experts in reading fine print and tracking the flow of money, computer chips and other goods around the world. They wanted to make it harder for Putin to fund a long war in Ukraine and to deny him access to modern warfare technologies.

Biden administration officials said that there were intense meetings in February in Paris, London, and Berlin, often running six hours at a time as the allies tried to craft the details of a historic economic blockade. The Europeans wouldn't allow the U.S. to ban some of the exports they sell to Russia.

Gina Raimondo was put on the phone when there was a stalemate.

When the body bags are coming out of Ukraine, you're not going to want to be a holdout.

Everyone signed on before the invasion.

The threat of an attack on Ukraine by Putin was what ultimately drove the agreement.

She said that it was time to band together and stick together.

Outside of China, the wealthiest nations are directly confronting Putin. Their strengths intersect with Russia's vulnerabilities. Russia is dependent on the U.S., the EU, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan for cutting-edge technologies and investment.

Foreign investors pull out their money in response to atrocities in order to trap Putin in a downward spiral. It is also a show of unity that could be tested in the coming weeks by the allies dependence on fossil fuels.

A group of economists estimated Thursday that EU countries have transferred more than 13 billion euros to Russia for oil, natural gas and coal since the war began.

The EU was not just waiting for the U.S. direction to act, it was also waiting for the allied talks to be critical. The members of the Bloc had been consulting for a long time.

One EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal talks, said in an interview that the EU had held together its coalition on enforcing sanctions since Russia's occupation of parts of the Donbas region in Ukraine.

The U.S. and EU responded to Russia's aggression with a novel set of policies to cripple Putin's ability to fight.

This supply chain squeeze will force Russia to raid existing airplanes, tanks and other gear for spare parts, which will erode its military and economic capacity. The same officials in the U.S. and EU who were dealing with their own supply chain challenges found a way to make it worse for Russia.

More than 300 companies have stopped doing business with Russia because of the closing of Lada auto plants in Russia. Infineon, a chipmaker from Germany, said it stopped all direct and indirect deliveries to Russia as well as technical support.

Russia's central bank's foreign assets were blocked by the allies after the invasion. Two senior Biden administration officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss the strategy and spoke on condition of anonymity, said this option was not initially presented to allies out of concern that Russia could move its money ahead of time. The Europeans were compelled to agree to the asset freeze after seeing the images of bombings and death.

Half of Putin's war chest was rendered useless by the freeze. The Russian stock market has been closed and the value of the ruble has plummeted, but the sanctions are designed to tighten the financial effects over time. The sanctions will do more to exhaust Putin if Ukraine is able to hold out against severe casualties.

EU Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis praised the coordination among nations and said the sanctions are biting hard. Russia's financial markets are close to collapse and the sanctions create costs for the allies, though the price is less than the consequences of the war spreading.

The unity of the 27 EU members is tested by every new round of sanctions. Germany and Italy, both heavily dependent on Russian energy, will be in a tough spot if a ban on Russian oil and gas is imposed. Biden banned imports of Russian oil and natural gas earlier this month because the U.S. is less dependent on them.

There is a chance that the sanctions will fail to stop Putin and that Russia can still bring in goods. According to data analyzed by ImportGenius, China replaced Germany as the leading source of exports to Russia in 2021.

The sanctions were compared to the bombing of German factories during World War II by the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. The bombings disrupted the German war machine in ways that made it impossible to prolong the fight, and economists had a role in choosing the targets.

Questions remain about whether it is enough for all that has been done.

The export controls should be expanded from defense-related production to anything that disorganizes production in the Russian economy. He said that if Russian-made refrigerators need a gasket made in the EU, it makes it harder for the Russian economy to function.

According to a finance professor at Columbia University who was born in Ukraine, sanctions don't stop dictators and if the U.S. and EU don't take more aggressive action, Putin might become even more entrenched. She said Europeans need to impose sanctions against Russia for using oil and gas.

Babina said that he will throw everything he has to win. It is important to cut off Russia's energy export revenues.

Babina noted that the allied strategy of sanctions costs Ukrainian lives.

How many people do we allow to die before Putin runs out of money?

There is a

Associated Press writer Raf Casert contributed to the report.

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