Russia warns of retaliation, damaged relations amid sanctions

MOSCOW — Russian legislators on Wednesday called for “painful” measures against the United States in response to plans for new U.S. sanctions, while the Kremlin focused more on the damage to relations between Washington and Moscow.

Apart from demanding a tough response, many in Russia declared dead any hope for improved relations with Washington under a Trump administration, and there were suggestions that European pique over the proposed measures created an opening for an anti-U.S. alliance.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin, noted that the proposed U.S. law was a draft. The House and the Senate must reconcile their versions before submitting it for President Donald Trump’s signature.

Any substantial response by Putin would require more study, Peskov said. Using one of Trump’s favorite adjectives in describing the law, he said, “In the meantime, it can be said that the news is quite sad with regard to Russia-U.S. relations and prospects for their development.” He added that it was “no less depressing with regard to the international law and international commercial relations.”

Similar sentiments emerged from several European capitals. In Paris, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that the new sanctions, targeting Iran and North Korea as well as Russia, appeared to contradict international law because of their global reach.

There is concern in Europe that the U.S. sanctions could ripple through the energy market because they target companies that contribute to the development, maintenance or modernization of the pipelines exporting Russian energy.

That would most likely affect a hotly debated pipeline project linking Russia with Germany, called Nord Stream 2, owned by the Russian state oil giant, Gazprom, but in which European firms hold financial stakes.

The U.S. bill, passed by the House on Tuesday, bolsters existing economic sanctions against Russia that were imposed after Moscow annexed Crimea and destabilized Ukraine in 2014.

The measures would force Trump to seek congressional approval before lifting any sanctions — a curb on executive authority that has prompted mixed signals from the White House about whether Trump will sign any final version of the bill.

Russia, effectively ignoring the fact that its election meddling had prompted the measures, used the push for tightened sanctions as further proof that forces in the U.S. government were continuing to thwart Trump’s wish, expressed during the campaign, to improve ties with Moscow.

Trump will sign the bill because he is “a prisoner of Congress and anti-Russian hysteria,” Alexei Pushkov, another Russian legislator and frequent commentator on foreign relations, wrote on Twitter. He called the sanctions “a new stage of confrontation” and mused whether the restaurant chain McDonald’s should be targeted in response.