The Bakersfield Californian

US sanctions Russian officials

- BY ELLEN KNICKMEYER

The Biden administra­tion sanctioned seven midlevel and senior Russian officials on Tuesday, along with more than a dozen businesses and other entities, over a nearly fatal nerve-agent attack on opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his subsequent jailing.

The measures, emphasizin­g the use of the Russian nerve agent as a banned chemical weapon, marked the Biden administra­tion’s first sanctions against associates of President Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader was an intimate and favorite of President Donald Trump even during covert Russian hacking and social media campaigns aimed at destabiliz­ing the U.S.

The government officials included at least four whom Navalny’s supporters had directly asked the West to penalize, saying they were most involved in targeting him and other dissidents and journalist­s. However, the U.S. list did not include any of Russia’s most powerful businesspe­ople and bankers, oligarchs whom Navalny has long said the West would have to sanction to get the attention of Putin.

Tuesday’s step “was not meant to be a silver bullet or an end date to what has been a difficult relationsh­ip with Russia,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “We expect the relationsh­ip to continue to be a challenge. We’re prepared for that.”

The Biden administra­tion also announced sanctions under the U.S. Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Eliminatio­n Act for businesses and other enterprise­s, most of which it said were involved in the production of biological and chemical agents.

The U.S. intelligen­ce community concluded with high confidence that Russia’s Federal Security Service used the Russian nerve agent Novichok on Navalny last August, a senior administra­tion official said. Russia says it had no role in any attack on the dissident.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoma­n Maria Zakharova on Tuesday denounced the new U.S. sanctions as part of its “meddling in our internal affairs.” “We aren’t going to tolerate that,” Zakharova said in a statement, adding that “we will respond in kind.”

“Attempts to put pressure on Russia with sanctions or other tools have failed in the past and will fail again,” Zakharova said.

 ?? ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICH­ENKO / AP FILE ?? In this Feb. 20 file photo, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gestures as he stands behind the glass of the cage in the Babuskinsk­y District Court in Moscow.
ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICH­ENKO / AP FILE In this Feb. 20 file photo, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gestures as he stands behind the glass of the cage in the Babuskinsk­y District Court in Moscow.

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