The Trump administration has announced it is enacting new sanctions on Russia, in an effort to punish Moscow for its interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Fairfax Media reports that among those being sanctioned are “two major Russian intelligence agencies, and a St Petersburg-based “troll farm”, the Internet Research Agency, accused of producing fake news”, as well as 19 individuals linked to those organisations.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The White House has also indicated that further sanctions are coming, over accusations that Russia had hacked into vital US infrastructure over a two-year period.
The Guardian says malware which had been traced back to Russia was found in the operating systems of “several organisations and companies in the US energy, nuclear, water and ‘critical manufacturing’ sector.”
In announcing the sanctions, the White House also formally backed the UK’s assessment that Russia is almost certainly responsible for the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury.
The Washington Post reports that the sanctions “fell well short of the full penalties” approved almost unanimously by Congress last August, which Donald Trump had previously declined to enact.
Top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, welcomed the sanctions as “an important step by the administration,” but added that “more must be done.”
Ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Adam Schiff, has described the sanctions as a “grievous disappointment”, adding they fall far short of what is required to “deter Russia’s escalating aggression, which now includes a chemical weapons attack on the soil of our closest ally.”
-
World’s oldest rock art discovered in IndonesiaUnder the Radar Ancient handprint on Sulawesi cave wall suggests complexity of thought, challenging long-held belief that human intelligence erupted in Europe
-
Claude Code: the viral AI coding app making a splash in techThe Explainer Engineers and noncoders alike are helping the app go viral
-
‘Human trafficking isn’t something that happens “somewhere else”’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Ukraine, US and Russia: do rare trilateral talks mean peace is possible?Rush to meet signals potential agreement but scepticism of Russian motives remain
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Trump backs off Greenland threats, declares ‘deal’Speed Read Trump and NATO have ‘formed the framework for a future deal,’ the president claimed
-
Iran in flames: will the regime be toppled?In Depth The moral case for removing the ayatollahs is clear, but what a post-regime Iran would look like is anything but
-
Europe moves troops to Greenland as Trump fixatesSpeed Read Foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark met at the White House yesterday
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Trump, Iran trade threats as protest deaths riseSpeed Read The death toll in Iran has surpassed 500
