President Donald Trump’s administration decided to impose new sanctions on Russia over Moscow’s alleged use of a nerve agent against an ex-British spy.
The Hill reported that the State Department said in a statement on Wednesday that the new sanctions would take effect on or around Aug 22.
The State Department announced that the U.S. determined on Monday that the Kremlin “has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals,” citing a 1991 law called the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act.
The man poisoned was Sergei Skripal, a one-time Russian military intelligence officer who was an informant for British intelligence services around the turn of the century. He and his daughter were most likely poisoned near Skripal’s home in Salisbury using a military grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia.
“If we don’t take immediate concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury will not be the last place we see chemical weapons used,” United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said at an emergency UN Security Council meeting in March. “They could be used here in New York or in cities of any country that sits on this council.”
At that time British Prime Minister Theresa May told the British Parliament that the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok was used in what appears to be an attempted assassination.
The UK in March banished 23 Russian diplomats in retaliation for the attack.
“There is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr. Skripal and his daughter, and for threatening the lives of other British citizens in Salisbury,” May said.
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