U.S. sanctions Russia over nerve-agent attack
Measures OK’d by Biden emphasize use of banned chemical weapon
The Biden administration sanctioned seven mid-level 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 favourite 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.
The Biden administration has pledged to confront Putin in alleged attacks on Russian opposition figures and in alleged malign actions abroad, including the hacking of U.S. government agencies and U.S. businesses. Trump spoke admiringly of Putin and resisted criticism of Putin’s government. That included dismissing U.S. intelligence findings that Russia had backed Trump in its covert campaign to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.
The administration co-ordinated the sanctions with the European Union, which added to its own sanctions Tuesday over the attack on Navalny.
The U.S. and European Union shared concerns about “Russia’s deepening authoritarianism,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
The individuals sanctioned by the U.S. included the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the head of prisons, Kremlin and defence figures, and Russia’s prosecutor general.
The Biden administration had forecast for weeks actions against Russia. Besides the Navalny sanctions, officials have said the administration plans to respond soon to the Russian hack of federal government agencies and private corporations that laid bare vulnerabilities in the cyber supply chain.