WASHINGTON (AP) – Biden administration prepares to announce sanctions in response to massive Russian piracy campaign that violated vital federal agencies as well as electoral interference, a senior US official said Wednesday night. administration.
The sanctions, foreshadowed for weeks by the administration, would represent the first retaliatory action announced against the Kremlin for last year’s piracy, familiarly known as SolarWinds’ breach. In this intrusion, Russian hackers are believed to have infected widely used software with malicious code, allowing them to access the networks of at least nine agencies in what U.S. officials believe was an operation by intelligence gathering aimed at mining government secrets.
In addition to that attack, U.S. officials alleged last month that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations to help Donald Trump in his failed re-election bid as president, though he did not. there is evidence that Russia and no one changed the votes or manipulated the result.
The measures will be announced on Thursday, according to the official, who was not allowed to discuss the matter on his behalf and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.
It was not immediately known what, if any, other actions could be planned. Officials had previously said they hoped to take both visible and invisible actions.
The sanctions, allegedly aimed at sending a clear retributive message to Russia and deterring similar acts in the future, come amid an already strained relationship between the US and Russia.
President Joe Biden told Putin this week in his second call to “reduce tensions” following a Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s border and said the US “would act firmly in defense of its national interests.” with regard to Russian interference and electoral interference.
Last month, in a television interview, he answered “yes” when asked if he believed Putin was a “killer.” He said the days of the United States are over to “roll” toward Putin. Putin later recalled his ambassador to the United States and noted the history of the United States of slavery and the killing of Native Americans and the atomic bombing of Japan during World War II.
It was still unclear whether U.S. actions would make changes in behavior, especially because previous U.S. measures have failed to end Russian piracy. The Obama administration expelled U.S. diplomats in 2016 in response to interference in this year’s presidential election. And while Trump was reluctant to criticize Putin, his administration also expelled diplomats in 2018 for allegedly poisoning Russia to a former intelligence officer in Britain.
U.S. officials are still facing the aftermath of the SolarWinds intrusion, which affected agencies such as the Treasury, Justice, Energy and Homeland Security departments, and are still assessing what information may have been stolen. The breach exposed vulnerabilities in the supply chain, as well as weaknesses in the federal government’s own cyber defenses.
The actions would represent the second major round of sanctions imposed by the Biden administration against Russia. Last month, the U.S. sanctioned seven middle- and senior-level Russian officials, along with more than a dozen government entities, for a near-fatal attack by nervous agents against opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his subsequent imprisonment.