29 July, 2017
The U.S. Senate passed a sweeping package of sanctions against North Korea, Russia and Iran on Thursday, tackling crude oil exports to Pyongyang, North Korean cargo and shipping, as well as goods produced by the regime using forced labor.
"We are ready for the fact that the new sanctions bill against Russian Federation will be signed by the USA president".
"The legislation would codify existing sanctions on Russia by placing into law six executive orders signed by President Obama in response to both Russian interference in the 2016 election and its illegal actions in Ukraine".
But Mr Trump has sought closer ties with Russian Federation, and has the power to veto the bill despite its political support.
Trump read early drafts of the bill and negotiated regarding critical elements of it.
Opposing the bill could be politically awkward for a White House that's been accused of going easy on Russian Federation. If the bill obtains enough bipartisan support among lawmakers, however, Congress would be able to override a veto.
Not waiting to see if the president signs them into law, Russian Federation has taken retaliatory action against USA diplomats on its soil, which is why we've called Shaun Walker, Moscow correspondent for The Guardian, who joins us by Skype.
The Russian foreign ministry on Friday slammed what it called "extreme aggressiveness of the United States in global affairs" and said Washington was using the "absolutely far-fetched pretext of Russia's interference in its internal affairs" to carry out "flagrantly anti-Russian actions".
It is expected to be passed by the Senate, after which US President Donald Trump will face the tricky choice of whether to veto the legislation.
Russian Federation did not initially retaliate for Obama's December closure of the compounds - reportedly after Trump's now-resigned national security adviser, Michael Flynn, told Russia's ambassador in Washington that Trump would reverse the action after taking office.
That's Shaun Walker, who's Moscow correspondent for The Guardian.
"We continue to support strong sanctions against those three countries, and were going to wait and see what that final legislation looks like and make a decision at that point", she told reporters.
With that in mind, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russian Federation wouldn't retaliate after the December sanctions, preferring to wait until the Trump administration moved into the White House.
"He can't not act", she said. And in some areas, such as cyberconflict, there are no rules of engagement at all. "They're going to hurt us on issues like North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba", he said. We agree that it needs political pressure on Moscow. The Russians then systematically leaked sensitive information to maximize the damage to Clinton and the Democrats, intelligence agents say. Friday's exchange over U.S. diplomats in Russia is "not the last thing the Russians are going to do and it's not the last thing we're going to do".
