US announces new sanctions against Russia
▶ Attack on spy is ‘threat to security,’ say France, Germany, US and UK
The Trump administration rolled out a package of new sanctions against Russia on Thursday that for the first time addresses its meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and continued cyber attacks targeting the United States.
The Treasury Department, in conjunction with the FBI, the National Security Council and Department of Homeland Security sanctioned five Russian entities and 19 individuals, including 13 indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller last month.
Speaking ahead of the announcement of the sanctions, US officials described Moscow’s behaviour as troubling, citing its continued attempts to disrupt western governments in the UK, in Ukraine, and by meddling in the 2016 US election.
They referred to renewed attempts by Russia to carry out cyber attacks in the United States, particularly the NotPetya attack last year that targeted the US energy grid and affected hospitals and shipping facilities.
The new sanctions were applied to the Internet Research Agency and “Putin’s chef”, Yevgeniy Prigozhin. Both were indicted by the Justice Department last month as part of Mr Mueller’s investigation. The IRA is described as a “troll farm” and a part of Russia’s propaganda effort to distribute fake news to help Mr Trump’s presidential campaign.
They also apply to two Russian intelligence services: the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and the Federal Security Service (FSB). The Treasury Department said the GRU was “directly involved” in 2016 election interference and “directly responsible” for the NotPetya attack. The FSB also carried out a 2014 cyber attack that compromised millions of Yahoo accounts, it said.
The sanctions freeze any assets in the US and block any transactions in the country or through US channels.
Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, said the US government was “confronting and countering malign Russian cyber activity, including their attempted interference in US elections, destructive cyber attacks and intrusions targeting critical infrastructure”.
But because these entities and individuals have been previously sanctioned by the US, the effect of the latest sanctions is debatable.
“They don’t mean much given that the Internet Research Agency, Mr Prigozhin and all of the dubious LLCs [limited liability companies] named in here were already indicted by Robert Mueller,” said Michael Weiss, a US security analyst and journalist who closely follows Russia.
“One could argue that the US Treasury is now accepting as fact the conclusions of the FBI [Mueller] investigation.”
Mr Trump had previously called Russian meddling “a hoax” and has denied any collusion between his election campaign and Moscow.
US officials tried to draw a line between the political statements coming from Mr Trump and the Treasury actions, and referred to White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders for a comment on the president’s views.
The new sanctions meet requirements under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, a law passed overwhelmingly by Congress last August.
While Democrats criticised the “long delayed” implementation of the law, Noah Rothman, a political analyst at Commentary magazine, said the new sanctions “were never ignored” by the Trump administration. “They followed the letter of the law, which allowed for a 120-day grace period.”
But Mr Rothman cautioned that “all of this is for naught, unless President Donald Trump himself personally and unequivocally names the threat posed by the increasingly reckless Russian President Vladimir Putin” rather than sending a mixed signal by criticising the FBI and its investigation.
The leaders of Britain, Germany, France and the United States on Thursday united to blame Russia for a chemical attack on a former spy and warned that its use of military-grade nerve agent posed a threat to western security.
The rare joint statement from the four leaders said there was no “plausible alternative explanation” for the attempted murder of former double agent Sergei Skripal in the English city of Salisbury on March 4.
Theresa May, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump said that the first offensive use of a nerve agent on European soil since the Second World War “threatens the security of us all”.
They called on Russia to provide “full and complete disclosure” of its Novichok programme to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. “We share the UK assessment that there is no plausible alternative explanation and note that Russia’s failure to address the legitimate request by the UK government further underlines its responsibility,” the statement said.
“We call on Russia to live up to its responsibilities as a member of the UN Security Council to uphold international peace and security.”
The statement came amid speculation that France was wobbling in its support after Britain pointedly blamed Russia for the poisoning of Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33. Both remain critically ill.
Meanwhile, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, said it would respond soon and suggested that the UK was blaming Moscow to distract public attention from the country’s difficult negotiations over its departure from the European Union.
British analysts said on Wednesday that one reason for the attack would have been to try to isolate the UK, which has been hawkish in its criticisms of Russia and has been forceful in championing European Union sanctions against Moscow over its role in destabilising Ukraine.
The statement was also a riposte to the Kremlin, which described the UK’s decision to expel 23 Russian diplomats on Wednesday as insane.
Britain claimed on Thursday that the attack was a thinly veiled warning to dissidents involved in spying on Russia that no one was safe from Moscow’s assassins.
“There is a reason for choosing Novichok,” said Boris Johnson, UK Foreign Secretary. “In its blatant Russian-ness, the nerve agent sends a signal to all who may be thinking of dissent in the intensifying repression of Putin’s Russia.
“The message is clear: We will find you, we will catch you, we will kill you – and though we will deny it with lip-curling scorn, the world will know beyond doubt that Russia did it.”
The attack was unlikely to have been carried out by rogue elements within the Russian regime without the connivance of senior figures, according to analysts from the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.
“Tearing up the rule book, making themselves unpredictable, being able to hit targets just below the threshold of war is the strategy for the future,” said Jonathan Eyal, its international director.
The joint statement came as the US sanctioned 19 people and five groups over meddling in the US presidential elections of 2016 and in cyber attacks, according to the Treasury Department.
Mrs May visited Salisbury on Thursday as Britain kept up a verbal offensive against Russia.
“We do hold Russia culpable for this brazen and despicable act that has taken place on the streets of what is such a remarkable city,” said the prime minister after visiting the site where Mr Skripal and his daughter were found.
Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, went further in suggesting that Russia should “shut up” after the government said it had responded to requests for information about its Novichok stocks with sarcasm and disdain.
The Russian embassy in London mocked the diplomatic expulsion, the largest by a British government for 31 years, on its Twitter feed.
“What we will do is look at how Russia responds to what we have done … Russia should go away, it should shut up,” Mr Williamson said.
The defence secretary announced that thousands of British soldiers are to take an anthrax vaccine in response to the poisoning in Salisbury. The move is one of a range of security measures and includes plans for a new £48 million (Dh245.8m) chemical weapons defence centre.
The UK has not asked for specific help from Nato, the head of the 29-member alliance said on Thursday.
Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general, said he saw no need to activate the alliance’s Article 5, which rallies all member nations to the aid of an ally under attack.
It has only ever been used once, by the US after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Mr Stoltenberg said the attack was “a blatant and serious violation of norms and rules that are important for the security of all of us” that was a part of a “reckless pattern of Russian behaviour over many years”.
If Pokemon Go was taken over by a racist hatemonger, the results might have looked much like the rules currently being circulated about “Punish a Muslim Day”. Letters are being received by Muslims around the UK declaring that April 3 is the target for inflicting horrendous physical assaults on Muslims. Those who find Muslims and carry out the attacks against them will collect rewards points.
“They have hurt you, they have made your loved ones suffer,” begins the vile letter. “What are you going to do about it?”
A neatly formatted table offers some options. You can win 25 points if you “pull the headscarf off a Muslim ‘woman’”. The quotation marks around ‘woman’ are obviously needed because Muslim women apparently do not count as women.
There are 50 points for throwing acid in a Muslim’s face. If you torture a Muslim using electrocution, skinning or a rack, you’ll accrue a whopping 250 points, although I’m not aware that Amazon or high street retailers do any special lines in medieval equipment, so this could be tough to do.
Or you could go for the nuclear option, literally, and win 2,500 points if you “nuke Mecca”. If only these violent extremists could get their spellings right: it’s Makkah.
I’m trying to poke fun because what I actually want to say is that I’m deeply alarmed.
If there was a widespread campaign threatening to have acid thrown in your face – or that of your children’s – you would be too.
The public discourse has been furiously accelerating the dehumanisation of Muslims, turning them into one homogenous terrorist persona that carries collective guilt for the terrorist acts of a handful of violent individuals.
It’s not a big stretch from the idea of collective guilt to the implementation of collective punishment.
More than a decade ago, I was writing about the echoes of European history in the 1930s being revived and how we needed to learn the lessons of the rise of Hitler to a backdrop of populism and hatred being whipped up.
I was told this was not an appropriate comparison.
I was told Muslims were overreacting.
I was told I was disrespectful. I was told that Europe had pledged “never again”.
In 2018, with the revival of the far right across Europe, the rise of populist parties, with a US president who promotes a Muslim ban and tweets videos promoting anti-Muslim hatred, it no longer seems that different, even to the most sceptical eyes.
Muslims are often accused of “playing the victim”. Here is clear evidence there is no “playing” in this equation.
This letter is a widespread campaign.
Four Muslim MPs received suspicious packages in Parliament along with the same ominous letters.
When one of the targeted MPs, Yasmin Qureshi, raised the issue in the UK Parliament, the response was woeful.
There has been no unequivocal condemnation from Prime Minister Theresa May. There is no mobilisation of security or police forces to protect mosques or other Muslim centres.
There has been some comfort offered by ordinary people, with responses like “Love a Muslim Day”, which offer rewards for pleasant acts towards Muslims, like buying a cup of coffee and cake (25 points) all the way up to buying a hajj package for a Muslim family, which wins 2,500 points.
It’s heartening that there is a groundswell of support but Muslims don’t need to be singled out, exacerbating our “otherness”.
Instead, we must fight anti-Muslim hatred. We can encourage respect, love and solidarity.
None of this comfort comes from those who hold power and can effect change from the top down.
What’s going on here is Islamophobia. But the government hasn’t even commissioned a definition.
It is not instituted in law. In fact, the government focus is in the contrary direction.
Yesterday the British government announced a new integration strategy which again casts Muslims as different and problematic.
With this top-down demonisation, it’s no wonder that the horror I initially expressed online in response to “Punish a Muslim Day” has received so many vile responses, such as: “Muslims are themselves to blame for Islamophobia” and “this is just the beginning. More to follow if you Muslims don’t mend your ways”.
The message is very clear: this is not a game. This is life, death and torture.