Comment: US sanctions on Russia for election hacking correct move
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin, it seems clear, has wanted to hold onto power for life. Though he may soon be reconsidering the wisdom of that.
Last year, Putin managed to get a constitutional amendment passed that would allow him to retain the presidency until 2036. Given that he’s been nominally in charge since 1999, this would be quite the feat.
Perhaps a new spate of sanctions announced on Thursday by the US Treasury Department will temper the Russian strongman’s appetite for retaining power. Not immediately, of course, but over time.
One thing seems certain, though – Putin, a former top KGB officer when the Soviet Union was still considered a rival superpower to the United States, has been missing former President Donald Trump, who treated Putin like he was unquestionably the top dog.
The sanctions, against Russian individuals and entities, are in response to the Kremlin’s interference in our 2020 elections. Added steps by Treasury will put the squeeze on Russia’s finances. Also announced on Thursday: The US would be expelling 10 officials, most apparently spies working under diplomatic cover, from the embassy in Washington.
Though Russia has responded in kind – on Friday it announced that it will also expel 10 US diplomats and restrict the work of those remaining in Moscow – it really has no reason to do so. Our actions are a proportionate counter to Russia’s bad behavior. They got involved in our democratic process and we responded, telling them to knock it off.
That ought to be the end of things. Which doesn’t mean that it will be.
When President Joe Biden spoke with Putin on Tuesday, he warned the 68-year-old Russian strongman of what would be coming on Thursday. And he also invited him to meet, at some point down the line, in a neutral nation. Putin, apparently, is considering the offer. (Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that Moscow had “positive reactions” to the proposal of holding a joint summit between Biden and Putin.)
Imagine what the Russian leader is thinking: Biden will be prepared, knowledgeable, knowing me for what I am. Yes, Biden recently said Putin is a killer.
Though Trump, from the first, dismissed as “fake news” what he would term “the Russia hoax,” the notion that Russia had worked behind the scenes in 2016 to help his cause against then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the so-called fake news got more real on Thursday when details revealed by our government allowed one to draw a line, clearer than ever, between Trump’s first campaign and the Kremlin.
Maybe not such a hoax, after all? — masslive.com/TNS