Russia’s claims of innocence in the face of U.S. sanctions drew mockery on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers backed new punishments with near-unanimity.
“The Russians are so good at disinformation, sometimes they believe their own disinformation,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told the Washington Examiner.
Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the new sanctions, which passed with House and the Senate with overwhelming support, as an illegal attempt to weaken Russia’s economy. His diplomatic team maintained that the United States has ignored Russian attempts to build a good relationship with the west, a defense that was dismissed by Congress.
“It is common knowledge that the Russian Federation has been doing everything in its power to improve bilateral relations, to encourage ties and cooperation with the U.S.,” the Foreign Ministry said. “Meanwhile, the United States is using Russia’s alleged interference in its domestic affairs as an absolutely contrived excuse for its persevering and crude campaigns against Russia.”
Putin and his team have denied that Russia was behind the cyberattacks against the Democratic Party, despite western intelligence assessments to the contrary. They have also cast doubt on Assad’s use of chemical weapons. In the early days of the Ukraine crisis, they denied Russian military involvement but acknowledged their role more recently.
“The Russians have long been engaged in misinformation,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., told the Washington Examiner. “There is no credibility to any of these claims.”
U.S. intelligence officials in President Trump’s administration and the Obama administration agree that Russians were behind a series of cyberattacks and document leaks targeting Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Leaked National Security Agency documents also revealed an effort to hack state election systems, although they didn’t succeed in altering the vote on election day. Russian officials harassed U.S. diplomats, according to the State Department, including one incident when a policeman outside the U.S. embassy in Moscow assaulted an American official trying to enter the building.
“We’re in a situation today where they are our adversary,” Cheney added. “They’re not going to admit what they’re doing, but I think the world is pretty clear on what they’re doing.”
The Russians did gain one cause for optimism on the international stage when Germany echoed their claim that lawmakers imposed sanctions on the Russian energy sector in order to boost American companies. “Sanctions policies are neither a suitable nor an appropriate instrument for promoting national export interests and the domestic energy sector,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Friday.
Cheney said the new measures, which also crack down on the Russian defense sector, are warranted. “We’re in a situation today where they are our adversary,” she said. “They’d like nothing better than to be able to shake our confidence in our political system, and, I think that’s a very serious thing. And I think that we took exactly the right steps.”
Nunes stood by the bill as well, while hinting that President Trump’s administration has more work to do. “This is long overdue,” he said. “I’m glad the country is finally paying attention to Putin. We just need a military strategy that’s going to match what we’re doing with all these sanctions and working with our partners around the globe.”
