WSJ learned new details of Biden's plan for "maximum pain for the Kremlin"

The White House is finalizing a package of sanctions against Russia and has decided not yet to impose restrictions on Russian gas and oil exports and disconnect the country from the SWIFT system, writes The Wall Street Journal.

The sanctions could affect the largest state-owned banks, "such as VTB", including a ban on transactions with all new issues of Russian government debt and export restrictions in key sectors of the economy, such as microelectronics, sources in the administration of US President Joe Biden told the newspaper.

The United States has moved away from the escalating approach of 2014 and now intends to introduce a wide range of restrictions from the outset. "We'll start big and go big to hurt the Kremlin as much as possible," one White House source told the paper about the administration's logic.

In addition to VTB, the White House considers Gazprombank and Sberbank as possible targets, the source said. But Sberbank may not get into the first round of sanctions, as Washington wants to have trump cards for the future, follows from the article.