The chairman of the House Armed Services said Thursday the NATO alliance must be united and “push back” against Russia for its suspected role in a U.K. nerve agent attack and a range of other malign activities in the country.
The call for stronger action from Rep. Mac Thornberry came just as the Trump administration unveiled new sanctions against Moscow for its 2016 election interference and the U.S. joined France, Germany, and the U.K. in concluding Russia was likely behind the attack this month on a former spy and his daughter.
“Whether it’s this incident or cyberattacks or Putin’s boasting about new nuclear weapons, I think it’s really critical for the alliance to stand together and push back against this whole range of activity,” Thornberry said during a hearing on Russia.
The general in charge of U.S. Europe Command testified that he agreed Russia has been waging a pattern of aggressive, destabilizing including the annexation of Crimea in 2014, cyberattacks on Ukraine and foreign election meddling.
“I agree that it represents Russia’s consistent disregard for international rules and norms, each of those instances that you talked about,” said Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also the NATO supreme allied commander.
Sanctions are an appropriate part of a response to those activities, he said.
Scaparrotti also echoed the new U.S. position on the chemical attack that led the U.K. to expel 23 Russian diplomats from the country on Wednesday.
“We also believe that it’s highly likely that they are complicit with the chemical weapons use,” Scaparrotti said. “We stand by our ally and we support their efforts to fully determine who the responsible parties were and hold them accountable.”
Congress, and especially Democrats, have been calling for a stronger U.S. response to Russia since the intelligence community concluded the Kremlin waged an information warfare campaign against the 2016 presidential election.
It passed new sanctions last year to punish Moscow for the meddling but the Trump administration delayed the implementation until Thursday.
“I think we need an administration that sends a much clearer signal on Russia” including on the nerve agent attack, said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. “Our own president was like, ‘Eh, it could have been, might have been somebody else.’ Sort of the same thing he said about the interference in the elections that Russia has done.
“The longer the leader of our country gives Russia a pass … the tougher your job is going to be,” Smith told Scaparrotti.
