US maintains Western sanctions working despite Russia's battlefield gains

The United States has defended the wide-ranging Western sanctions against Russia over its military onslaught on Ukraine, now in its 135th day while vowing to counter Chinese policies that it said have "implications" for transatlantic security.

Sanctions against Moscow are "having an impact …  and we will continue to raise costs for Russia," US deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Doug Jones told media on Thursday in Washington.

"We've seen Russia default on its foreign loans. We've seen their inability to replace a lot of the weapon systems they are losing in Ukraine as a result of export controls. We’ve seen the impact on their economy," he said.

Putin, Bolsonaro say sanctions failed

His comments came after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Ukraine is heading for "tragedy" and the Western sanctions on Moscow had caused difficulties "but not at all what the initiators of the economic blitzkrieg against Russia were counting on."

Putin's comments were echoed by Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro who called the Western sanctions futile, claiming the "economic barriers that the United States and Europe imposed against Russia did not work."

Jones, who was discussing the key outcomes from the NATO summit in Madrid and the next steps with Ukraine and Russia, highlighted what he said were increased linkages between the security in the Pacific and transatlantic space.

Transatlantic security

Asked how big a threat is China to the NATO military bloc, Jones referred to NATO’s new "strategic concept" in which China was included for the first time, saying Beijing's "coercive" policies and its attempts to "undermine" rules-based order in the Pacific have "implications" for transatlantic security.

"This is not about NATO going into the Pacific and getting involved there. This is about the impact China has on transatlantic security and the need for NATO to deal with that," he said.

He said NATO allies are focusing on how to build collective resilience against challenges posed by China "that we are seeing in transatlantic spaces."

"It takes many forms, like cyber, hybrid, disinformation, and also coercive lending practices and investing in infrastructure which also poses risk to allies' security," he said.

China has slammed NATO's strategic concept, saying the military alliance "has not yet abandoned its thinking and practice of creating enemies 30 years after the end of the Cold War."