Biden to issue executive order after Russia recognizes independence of Ukraine's breakaway territories

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22: White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that U.S. President Joe Biden will soon sign an executive order banning Americans from doing business in the two Ukrainian regions that Russia has recognized as independent states.

"President Biden will soon issue an Executive Order that will prohibit new investment, trade, and financing by U.S. persons to, from, or in the so-called DNR and LNR regions of Ukraine," Psaki said in the statement, using the Russian abbreviation of the "Donetsk People's Republic" and the "Lugansk People's Republic," two self-declared republics founded by anti-government militia groups in Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts during the height of the armed conflicts in eastern Ukraine in 2014.