Moscow officials are vowing retaliation after the president Joe Biden
Joe BidenIntercept chief of staff: minimum wage was not “high priority” for Biden in relief from COVID-19 South Carolina Senate adds firing squad as an alternative method of execution Seth Harris, Obama’s former president, to serve as Biden’s labor consultant: MORE report this week announced sanctions for the poisoning and arrest of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
“All of this is just an excuse to continue open interference in our internal affairs,” said Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, in a statement released on Tuesday, according to Reuters. “We have no intention of putting up with this. We will respond based on the principle of reciprocity, but not necessarily symmetrically. “
The Biden government earlier in the day said it planned to issue sanctions and accused the Russian intelligence agency of trying to kill Navalny. The outspoken critic of the Kremlin and the Russian president Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich PutinWray suggests a federal response to the SolarWinds hack in the Kremlin: musky invitation to Putin to talk at the Clubhouse ‘some kind of misunderstanding’ Biden to sanction Russia for Navalny poisoning, arresting MORE was poisoned at the end of last summer and has since recovered.
“Our goal is to have a predictable and stable relationship with Russia. Where there are opportunities for it to be constructive, and in our interest, we intend to pursue them. Given Russia’s conduct in recent years, there will undoubtedly also be adversary elements and we will not be afraid of them, ”a senior government official told The Hill this week. “The United States is not trying to restart our relations with Russia, nor do we seek to intensify.”
The new sanctions against Russia target seven of the country’s top officials. The United States is also imposing export controls on several commercial entities involved in the production of biological agents.
The government uses the authority granted under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and War Elimination Act of 1991 to expand the sanctions imposed on Russia in response to the March 2018 poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter , Yulia, in Great Britain.
Moscow rejected the most recent sanctions, suggesting that they have no teeth and lack merit.
“Regardless of America’s ‘sanctions addiction’, we will continue to defend our national interests consistently and decisively, repelling any aggression. We ask our colleagues not to play with fire, ”said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.