WASHINGTON (AP) – The Biden government has announced that the US is expelling ten Russian diplomats and imposing sanctions on dozens of people and companies, holding the Kremlin responsible for interfering in last year’s presidential election and the hijacking of federal agencies.
The comprehensive measures announced on Thursday are intended to punish Russia for actions that, according to US officials, have been cut to the core of US democracy and to ward off future actions by imposing economic costs on Moscow, including its ability to to borrow money. The sanctions will certainly exacerbate tensions with Russia, which has promised a response, even if President Joe Biden said the government could have taken even more sanctions but chose not to enforce them.
“We can not allow a foreign power to interfere with our democratic process with impunity,” Biden said in the White House.
Sanctions against six Russian companies backing the country’s cyber efforts are the first retaliatory measures against the Kremlin for the hack known as the SolarWinds intrusion, and the US has explicitly linked the intrusion to the SVR, a Russian intelligence service. agency. Although such missions for intelligence gathering are not uncommon, officials said they are determined to respond because of the wide range of operations and the high cost of invading private businesses.
The US has also announced sanctions against 32 individuals and entities accused of trying to interfere in last year’s presidential election, among other things by spreading disinformation. U.S. officials claimed in a declassified report last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin has authorized the influence of operations to assist Donald Trump in his unsuccessful attempt at re-election as president, although there is no evidence that Russia or anyone else has changed votes.
The actions, which have been predicted by the administration for weeks, point to a tougher line against Putin, whom Trump has been reluctant to criticize, even as his government has imposed sanctions on Moscow. This is the government’s second major step for foreign policy within two days, after announcing withdrawals of troops from Afghanistan. Until now, Biden has largely focused on the coronavirus pandemic and economy in his first months in office.
Biden said on Thursday that when he informed Putin days earlier of the forthcoming measures – which include the expulsion of the ten diplomats, some of them representatives of the Russian intelligence services – he told the Russian leader “that we could go further, “But I chose not to do it, so I chose to be proportionate.”
“We want a stable, predictable relationship,” he said. ‘
Nevertheless, Russian officials spoke of a swift response, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warning that “a series of retaliatory measures will be imminent.”
Other US measures are also expected, though the government is unlikely to announce them. Officials advised to respond to Russia in a way that would be seen and unseen.
The sanctions announced Thursday are the latest in a series of actions taken by successive presidential governments to counter Russian behavior, which is seen as antagonistic. It is unclear whether the new US action will lead to a change in behavior, especially as previous measures by the US – both Trump and Barack Obama – have suspended individual diplomats. during their presidency – managed to put an end to Russian burglary.
But experts suggest that this latest round, even though it is not guaranteed to curb cyberattacks, could have more resonance because of its financial impact: the order makes it harder for Russia to borrow money by banning US banks from Russian bonds for sale directly at the Russian Central Bank. , Russian National Welfare Fund and Ministry of Finance. This could hamper Russia’s capital raising efforts and leave companies resting to do business in Russia.
“The impact of the sanctions and the US willingness to impose costs will be weighed by Putin as he evaluates his next steps, although he is unlikely to make a 180” turning point in his behavior, “Daniel Fried said. a former assistant secretary of state, said for European and Eurasian affairs.
“The issue is how we can push back against Putin’s aggression while at the same time keeping open channels of communication and continuing to work with Russia in areas of mutual interest,” Fried said. “And it seems to me the Biden government has done a good job of setting up the relationship exactly that way.”
Eric Lorber, a former Treasury Department official now at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said the government was “certainly trying to strike a balance between Russia and Russia while at the same time not pursuing full-fledged economic affairs. warfare. ”
The White House did not impose sanctions in connection with separate reports that Russia had encouraged the Taliban to attack US and allied troops in Afghanistan, but rather that Biden was using diplomatic, military and intelligence channels to respond.
Reports of alleged ‘bounties’ appeared last year, with the Trump administration coming under fire for not raising the issue directly with Russia. Administration officials said Thursday that they have only low to moderate confidence in the intelligence, in part because of the ways the information was obtained, including through interrogations of Afghan detainees.
Among the companies approved are websites that, according to U.S. officials, serve as frontiers for Russian intelligence agencies and disseminate disinformation, including articles on widespread voter fraud in 2020. The individuals targeted include Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant. . who worked with former Trump campaign president Paul Manafort and who was charged in the special investigation Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
The treasury said on Thursday that Kilimnik had provided “sensitive information on ballot box and campaign strategy” to Russian intelligence services. It went further than the office of Mueller, who said in his 2019 report that he could not determine what Kilimnik did with the ballot box data after getting it from the Trump campaign.
Also on the sanctions list was Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff, Alexei Gromov, several individuals linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with close ties to the Russian president, nicknamed “Putin’s chief” for the Kremlin’s ministry. functions, and various front companies according to the USA. helped Prigozhin evade previously imposed sanctions.
The US also approved eight individuals and entities associated with Russia’s occupation of Crimea.
Biden told Putin that the sanctions would come earlier this week. Administration officials have made it clear in their contacts with the Russian side that they hope to avoid a “downward spiral” in the relationship, according to a senior administration official who informed reporters about the condition of anonymity following the sanction -announcement.
The two leaders had a tense call in which Biden Putin called for easing tensions following a Russian military build-up on the Ukrainian border and said the US would “definitely act to defend its national interests” regarding Russian intrusions and interference in the election.
In a television interview last month, Biden responded “I do” to the question of whether he thinks Putin is a “killer”. He said the days of the US transfer to Putin were over. Putin later recalled his ambassador to the United States, pointing to the American history of slavery and the battle of Native Americans and the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II.
U.S. officials are still grappling with the aftermath of the SolarWinds burglary, which affected agencies, including departments of the Treasury, Justice and Homeland Security. The breach exposed vulnerabilities in the supply chain, as well as weaknesses in the federal government’s own cyber defense.
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller in Washington, Vladimir Isachenkov and Daria Litvinova in Moscow and AP diplomatic writer Matthew Lee in Kabul contributed.