US punishes Russia for Navalny poison attack

Washington targets top spy in signal that president Biden will take a tougher line against the Kremlin

Washington has imposed sanctions on the director of Russia’s FSB security agency after concluding it carried out the Novichok attack on Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s leading critic. Alexander Bortnikov, who has led the KGB’S successor since 2008, was one of seven senior officials targeted. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said last night the move sent “a clear signal” Russia’s use of chemical weapons and human rights abuses “have severe consequences”.

THE US last night imposed sanctions on the director of Russia’s FSB security agency after concluding it carried out the poisoning attack on Vladimir Putin’s leading critic Alexei Navalny.

Alexander Bortnikov, who has led the KGB’S successor since 2008, was one of seven senior Russian officials targeted.

Others included Alexander Kalashnikov, Russia’s prisons administrator, Andrei Yarin, domestic policy chief, and deputy defence ministers Alexei Krivoruchko and Pavel Popov.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said: “The US government has exercised its authorities to send a clear signal that Russia’s use of chemical weapons, and abuse of human rights, have severe consequences.”

Those sanctioned will have any US assets frozen, US transactions with them subject to prosecution, and they will not be able to travel to the US.

The largely symbolic action was the first taken against Russia by Joe Biden, five weeks into his presidency. US officials said it was intended to signal a tougher line against the Kremlin than was pursued by Donald Trump.

The US also announced sanctions against 13 Russian businesses, and a government research institute.

Officials said they were targeting companies involved in producing materials that could be used in biological and chemical agents. They also renewed demands Mr Navalny, the opposition leader, be released from jail.

US intelligence agents had determined with “high confidence” that the FSB used the nerve agent Novichok against Mr Navalny in August, a senior official in Washington said.

Mr Navalny fell violently ill during a domestic flight and was rushed for treatment in Germany, where doctors diagnosed Novichok poisoning.

He returned to Moscow in January and was immediately arrested.

There were no US sanctions specifically aimed at Vladimir Putin or oligarchs loyal to him.

A US official said the sanctions were drawn up in “close contact” with the EU and the UK. Hours later, the EU sanctioned four Russians for their role in the jailing of Mr Navalny and the crackdown on demonstrations against his imprisonment. The bloc used its new Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime to punish the Russian officials with travel bans and asset freezes.

Those targeted included Alexander Bastrykin, whose Investigative Committee handles inquiries into major crimes and reports directly to Mr Putin.

Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, welcomed the sanctions. He added: “We will continue to work closely with international

‘The US has sent a clear signal that Russia’s use of chemical weapons has severe consequences’

partners to hold Russia to account for failing to uphold their chemical weapons and human rights obligations.”

Denouncing the sanctions Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Such a policy does not achieve its goals.”

Joe Biden’s decision to impose sanctions against Russia over its appalling treatment of opposition politician Alexei Navalny shows that, far from being a rerun of the Obama administration, his presidency intends to adopt a more robust approach to tackling vital global issues.

Since taking office in January, there has been a widespread expectation, especially among his supporters, that Mr Biden would pursue the same non-confrontational approach that characterised former president Barack Obama’s eight-year spell in office. From kowtowing to China’s communist rulers to backing down on his threat to launch military action against the Assad regime in Syria, Mr Obama’s presidency was defined by his reluctance to hold the world’s wrongdoers to account, with the result that rogue regimes such as China, Russia and Iran now constitute an active threat to Western interests.

As Mr Obama’s vice president, Mr

Biden had a ringside seat to all the vacillation and hesitancy, so it was generally accepted that America’s 46th president would pursue a similar approach.

Yet even though he has only been in office for six weeks, Mr Biden is already sending out clear signals that his presidency will be very different, indeed that he has learnt some of the lessons of his direct predecessor, Donald Trump. He is making it clear that he is not afraid to make a stand in defence of democratic values.

Mr Biden is to be applauded for his decision to impose sanctions against key Russian officials implicated in last year’s assassination attempt on Mr Navalny, who narrowly survived after being poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent.

The decisive action by the Biden administration, coming days after it emerged that Mr Navalny has been imprisoned at one of Russia’s most notorious penal camps after being convicted on trumped-up fraud charges, is in stark contrast to the capitulation of the Obama era. Mr Obama’s disinclination to hold Moscow to account for its interference in eastern Ukraine, as well as its illegal annexation of Crimea, is arguably the reason why Vladimir Putin today believes that he can maintain his aggressive stance towards the West, as well as imprisoning anyone who dares to oppose his despotic rule.

Mr Biden’s willingness to confront the Kremlin so early in his presidency is also a welcome change from the

Obama administration’s clumsy attempts to establish a dialogue with Mr Putin, which manifested itself in former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s ill-judged attempt to present her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, with a plastic reset button, a gesture that was supposed to symbolise a new era in Us-russian relations, but which ultimately fell on deaf ears.

Mr Biden’s approach, it appears, will be based on the more traditional American values of hard-nosed realpolitik. As an administration official remarked following the imposition of yesterday’s sanctions: “The United States is neither seeking to reset our relations with Russia, nor are we seeking to escalate. We believe that the United States and our partners must be clear and impose costs when Russia’s behaviour crosses boundaries that are respected by responsible nations.” Hear, hear to that.

China is another key area where Mr Biden is promising to be more Trumplike in his readiness to hold Beijing to account. He has committed to building an alliance of like-minded nations that are prepared to uphold and defend the values of democratic rule in the face of Chinese aggression.

But the most difficult challenges – certainly in the short term – facing the Biden administration are likely to come from the Middle East, where Iran’s increasingly defiant conduct over its nuclear programme is likely to lead to yet another escalation in tensions with Washington.

In this context, Mr Biden’s decision to release the CIA’S classified report into the murder of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi might appear counterproductive, given that it directly implicates Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the killing, an accusation Riyadh vehemently denies.

Mr Biden’s decision to make the CIA’S findings public was taken, for the most part, to appease the vociferous anti-saudi faction within his own Democratic Party.

Indeed, Mr Biden denounced the kingdom as a “pariah state” during last year’s presidential contest, claiming the country had “no redeeming social value”.

Nevertheless, Mr Biden is equally aware that he needs Saudi support if he is to have any chance of containing Iranian aggression, which explains why he phoned King Salman prior to the report’s publication, and resisted calls to implement sanctions against the Crown Prince.

This is policymaking at its most pragmatic, and is an early indication that, when it comes to taking tough decisions, Mr Biden is very much his own man, a president who is determined to make his own, distinctive mark on key global affairs.

It is an approach that, if successful, will help to justify his oft-quoted mantra that “America is back”.