The Los Angeles Post

Biden administration sanctions Russia for SolarWinds hack, election interference

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The Biden administration on Thursday announced sanctions against Russia for its involvement in a recent major cyber espionage operation against the U.S., foreign influence operations around U.S. elections and other concerns.

The Biden administration’s actions on Thursday:

  • Block U.S. financial institutions from purchasing bonds from Russia’s Central Bank, National Wealth Fund or Ministry of Finance after June 14 and from lending funds to these institutions.
  • Expels 10 personnel from the Russian diplomatic mission in Washington, some of whom U.S. officials say are representatives of Russian intelligence services.
  • Sanctions six Russian technology companies that officials say provide support for Russian intelligence operations.
  • Sanctions 32 individuals involved in Russian efforts to influence the 2020 election.

The directive left open the possibility for the administration to expand the sanctions on Russian sovereign debt.

Blame game: U.S. intelligence agencies in January said the recent SolarWinds hack was “likely” carried out by Russian hackers but did not fully attribute it.  As part of Thursday’s actions, the Biden administration issued a formal attribution naming Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) as the culprit behind what has become one of the largest cyber espionage attacks in U.S. history.

As part of the response to the malicious Russian hacking, the FBI, the National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an alert Thursday providing details on vulnerabilities used by the Russian hackers, along with ways to further defend networks.

What this means: The sanctions are not likely to improve the chilly relationship between the U.S. and Russia, though Biden administration officials emphasized Thursday that they were not looking to heighten tensions.

“Our objective here is not to escalate. Our objective here is to impose costs for what we feel are unacceptable actions by the Russian government,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a briefing with reporters on Thursday.

More intelligence: In addition to attributing the SolarWinds hack to Russia, administration officials said Thursday that the U.S. intelligence community assessed with “low to medium confidence” that Russia was behind bounties placed on U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2019.