Report: Washington to target Russia’s debt with new sanctions

MOSCOW, Apr 15 (PRIME) -- The new U.S. anti-Moscow sanctions will target Russia’s sovereign debt, the New York Times reported late on Wednesday quoting sources.

“The Biden administration is set to announce on Thursday a string of long-awaited measures against Russia, including far-reaching financial sanctions, for the hacking of government and private networks and a range of other activity, according to people who have been briefed on the moves,” the report read.

“The sanctions are meant to cut deeper than previous efforts to punish Russia for interfering in elections, targeting the country’s sovereign debt, according to people briefed on the matter. Administration officials were determined to draft a response that would impose real costs on Moscow, as many previous rounds of sanctions have been shrugged off.”

Bloomberg reported quoting sources that Washington will sanction about a dozen of Russians and 20 Russian companies, and also expel as many as 10 Russian diplomats in retaliation for alleged election interference and a cyberattack through SolarWinds.

The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. President Joe Biden will order U.S. banks to suspend operations with Russian state bonds.

In January, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency published a joint statement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government bodies that Russia was likely behind the attack on clients of cybersecurity company SolarWinds with the likely goal of receiving intelligence. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said in February that the new sanctions will not simply be sanctions, but a mix of tools “seen and unseen”.

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeatedly said that Moscow was not in any way involved in cyberattacks, while Foreign Ministry’s official spokeswoman Mariya Zakharova said that accusations of the U.S. are unsubstantiated.

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