The Trump administration will hit Russia with new sanctions over the attempted assassination in Britain of a former Kremlin spy, the latest in a string of moves aimed at standing up to Moscow after President Donald Trump’s controversial summit with Vladimir Putin.
The State Department made the announcement Wednesday after concluding that Russia used a banned nerve agent, Novichok, to try and kill the ex-spy, Sergei Skripal, according to spokeswoman Heather Nauert.
Nauert said a U.S. investigation found Moscow had “used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals.”
Skripal, a retired Russian military intelligence officer, and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were found unconscious in the English city of Salisbury on March 4. Yulia was released from the hospital in April after being treated for the nerve agent attack. Her father was discharged in May.
Wednesday’s action comes a week after the Trump administration organized a briefing of top national security officials to warn about Russia’s ongoing attempts to spread disinformation in America. The State Department last week also called out Russia specifically after Facebook announced it had removed nearly three dozen propaganda pages, some of which linked back to prior Kremlin information warfare efforts.
Several observers saw the moves as an attempt to counteract the narrative that Trump had kowtowed to Putin during a one-on-one summit held nearly a month ago. Trump was criticized for not pressing Putin aggressively on several issues, such as election meddling, during a press conference after the meeting.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, Trump had not yet commented on Twitter about the latest Russia sanctions. Sen. Rand Paul, who is visiting Moscow, said earlier in the day that he had delivered a letter from Trump to Putin that “emphasized the importance of further engagement” between the two leaders.
The latest round of Russian sanctions are expected to take effect on or around Aug. 22. During a briefing with reporters, a State Department official said the U.S. will limit exports to Russia of goods and technology considered to be sensitive on national security grounds.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in exports could be blocked under the sanctions, the official said.
Penalties could be waived for space-flight activities and U.S. foreign assistance, the official added.
According to the State Department, the Kremlin was notified on Wednesday afternoon about the penalties, as were U.S. allies.
Russia has consistently denied a role in the incident, reiterating its stance as recently as Wednesday.
“We are interested in establishing the truth of what happened in Salisbury,” said a Russian embassy official in London before the U.S. announced its sanctions. “Our approach is absolutely clear — we seek the truth and wish to know what happened to the Russian nationals in Salisbury and where they are now.”
The conclusion of the U.S. investigation comes several months after U.K. authorities reached a similar conclusion in April, accusing the Kremlin of breaking an international ban on chemical weapons.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) in March issued a formal request for the Trump administration to also probe the matter to see if Russia should face sanctions.
The request gave the government two months to conduct its investigation, a timeline that expired in mid-May. The State Department downplayed the delay, citing similar investigations into Syrian and North Korean actions that also dragged on beyond the two-month window.
The White House did expel 60 Russian diplomats from the U.S. in March over the poisoning.
Republican lawmakers were quick to praise the administration’s actions on Wednesday.
Royce, despite expressing frustration about the missed deadline in a letter sent two weeks ago to the president, called the sanctions “key to increasing pressure on Russia.”
“Vladimir Putin must know that we will not tolerate his deadly acts, or his ongoing attacks on our democratic process,” he added in a statement.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the assassination attempt was “another example of [Russia’s] reckless and destabilizing actions on the world stage.”
“We must stand with our British allies, and I’m pleased to see the Trump administration hold Russia accountable for its actions by imposing additional sanctions,” he said in a statement.
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