US to hit Russia with sanctions after accusation of UK nerve agent attack
The United States said it will impose sanctions on Russia for using a chemical weapon in the attempted assassination of a former spy and his daughter in Britain.
The penalties were announced despite US President Donald Trump’s efforts to improve relations with Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin, as well as his criticism of the US investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Mr Putin’s spokesman said the US move was contrary to the constructive atmosphere of the Trump-Putin summit last month, and denied any Russian involvement.
“In our view, these and earlier restrictions are absolutely unlawful and don’t conform to international law,” Dmitry Peskov said.
The US State Department said the sanctions were a result of a conclusion this week that Russia used the Novichok nerve agent to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
It said Congress was being notified of the August 6 determination and the sanctions would start around August 22, when the finding is to be published in the Federal Register.
They will include a denial of export licences to companies selling items with national security implications to Russia, a State Department official said.
In February, the US also concluded that North Korea used a chemical weapon to assassinate leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, in 2017.
In England, Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by the Novichok military-grade nerve agent in Salisbury in March.
Four months later, in June, a British couple were then poisoned by the nerve agent in Amesbury, 14 kilometres from Salisbury. Police believe Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess found a perfume bottle containing Novichok. Ms Sturgess died eight days later.
The US joined Britain in condemning Russia for the Skripal poisoning and, along with European nations, expelled Russian diplomats, but it had yet to make a formal determination that the Russian government had “used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals”.
British Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed the US decision. The move sends “an unequivocal message to Russia that its provocative, reckless behaviour will not go unchallenged”, her office said.
Mr Peskov insisted that “there can’t be any talk about Russia having any relation to the use of chemical weapons”. He said Britain had failed to present any evidence to back the claim and stonewalled Russia’s proposal for a joint investigation.
The Russian embassy in Washington said the US sanctions were not backed by facts or evidence, noting that while the US said it had enough information to conclude that Russia was to blame, it refused to disclose what it had, saying the information was classified.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, said the US had behaved like a “police state, threatening and torturing a suspect to get evidence”. He said the new sanctions amounted to “inflicting a punishment in the absence of a crime in the tradition of lynch law”.
Leonid Slutsky, the head of the lower house’s foreign affairs committee, denounced the sanctions as a manifestation of “unbridled Russophobia” and a mockery of international law, saying that Russia may respond with counter sanctions.
Mr Peskov said the Kremlin needed to see what specific action the US took before retaliating, but that Russia’s financial system was strong enough to withstand shocks from the new penalties.
The Russian rouble sank to its lowest level since April on Thursday, before recovering slightly.
Shares of Russian state-controlled banks, the national airline Aeroflot and other companies also dropped.
The US State Department announcement sent the rouble tumbling to its lowest level since April, while shares also dipped