Despite providing hard evidence, President Biden last Thursday imposed sanctions on Russia for alleged election interference and its role in the SolarWinds computer hacking into federal systems.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Biden’s sanctions and diplomatic expulsions fell short of the most “disruptive economic measures” it could have taken.
The Trends Journal has been monitoring the worsening relationship between Biden and Russian President Vladamir Putin. On 13 October, we ran the article, “PUTIN ACKNOWLEDGES BIDEN’S ANTI-RUSSIAN RHETORIC,” which was a glimpse of what was to come.
Putin said he noticed Biden’s “sharp, anti-Russian rhetoric” during his presidential campaign. Biden called former President Trump “Putin’s puppy” during the campaign and recalled the time, when he was vice president in 2011, that he met with Putin:
“I said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul’… And he looked back at me, and he smiled, and he said, ‘We understand one another.’”
The relationship soured further after a Biden interview on ABC News when he said in March that he believed Putin is a killer.
Biden said on Thursday he chose to “be proportionate” with the sanctions:
“The United States is not looking to kick off a cycle of escalation and conflict with Russia. We want a stable, predictable relationship. If Russia continues interfering with our democracy, I’m prepared to take further actions to respond.”
The new sanctions target 16 entities and 16 people who are accused of trying to influence the 2020 election. The report said the others were tied to the Crimea annexation and human rights abuses.
Ten Russian diplomats were expelled from the U.S. The Journal reported that an executive order signed by Biden also bans U.S. financial companies from buying new bonds directly from Russia’s central bank, finance ministry, and country’s sovereign-wealth fund in June.
Pay Back
Moscow announced Saturday that it would expel ten U.S. diplomats in response to the new sanctions imposed by the Biden administration.
Officials in Washington expected Russia to react. The Financial Times called the Russian announcement a “tit-for-tat response.”
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, hinted at the possible beginning of a thaw in Putin’s relationship with Biden, and he said Moscow had positive reactions to the proposal from the U.S. for a summit between the two leaders.
The FT reported that in addition to the expulsion of the diplomats, Moscow will bar non-Americans from working at U.S. missions located in the country and end a program allowing officials from the State Department unlimited visits to Russia. Eight U.S. officials have been added to the sanction list, the report said.
“For obvious reasons, we do not have comparable leverage over the United states of this [financial] scale. We also have the opportunity to take painful measures for American businesses [but] we will keep them in reserve,” Lavrov said, according to the FT.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Rumor (history?) has it that the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia, which began in 1947, ended in 1991. But rather than seeking Peace on Earth and keeping relationships respectful, most of America’s politicians and all of the military-industrial complex – and their Western counterparts (i.e., “allies”) – have not stopped waging the Cold War.
As we have been reporting since the end of the Cold War – from America’s Gulf War, Kosovo War, Afghan War, Iraq War… to its military interventions in Somalia, Libya, etc., plus its 800 military bases in 70 countries – Russia is a minor war-mongering nation compared to the U.S. track record of killing millions and stealing trillions from its taxpayers to wage these wars.
As we have reported in detail since the so-called “Russiagate” was launched by the Democratic Party and its media Presstitutes immediately following Trump’s win of the 2016 election, there has not been one shred of hard evidence proving Russia interfered with the election.
Yet, the drama continues, and most people buy it, just as most have swallowed other lies sold to them by their governments over the centuries. “Remember the Main”?
As the founder of Occupy Peace & Freedom, rather than creating movements toward peace, to keep peddling hatred between the two nations is morally, spiritually, and economically destructive. Indeed, America was an ally of Russia in World War II and would not have achieved victory when it did without them.
Yet, following World War II, Russia became its enemy, while Japan and Germany – for which over 400,000 Americans died fighting – became U.S. allies and business partners.
