Sanctions Show Russia Must Be Held Accountable for Navalny Poisoning: State Dept.

The US State Department says the latest sanctions against Russian officials send a clear signal that there are consequences for their behavior.

"These actions today demonstrate that there will be accountability for the use of chemical weapons and actions that violate international norms and abuse human rights," said State Department Spokersperson, Ned Price.

"The United States calls upon Russia to comply with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and to declare and destroy its chemical weapons program under international verification. We reiterate our call for the Russian government to immediately and to unconditionally release Mr. Navalny."

The measures, emphasizing the use of the Russian nerve agent as a banned chemical weapon, marked the Biden administration's first sanctions against associates of President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader was an intimate and favorite of President Donald Trump even amid covert Russian hacking and social media campaigns aimed at destabilizing the U.S..

The government officials included at least four whom Navalny's supporters had directly asked the West to penalize, saying they were most involved in targeting him and other dissidents and journalists.

However, the U.S. list did not include any of Russia's most powerful business people and bankers, oligarchs whom Navalny has long said the West would have to sanction to get the attention of Putin.

The Biden administration also announced sanctions under the U.S. Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act for businesses and other enterprises, most of which it said were involved in the production of biological and chemical agents.

The U.S. intelligence community concluded with high confidence that Russia's Federal Security Service used the Russian nerve agent Novichok on Navalny last August, a senior administration official said.

The administration coordinated the sanctions with the European Union, which added to its own sanctions Tuesday over the attack on Navalny.

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