The U. S. and its allies blamed Russia for the poisoning in March.
The Trump administration will hit Russia with new sanctions over the attempted assassination in Britain of a former Kremlin spy.
The State Department made the announcement Wednesday after concluding on Aug. 6 that Russia used a banned nerve agent, Novichok, to try and kill the ex-spy, Sergei Skripal, according to spokeswoman Heather Nauert.
Nauert said a U. S. investigation found Moscow had „used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals.“
Skripal, a retired Russian military intelligence officer, and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were found unconscious in the English city of Salisbury on March 4. United Kingdom authorities said the two had been poisoned with a nerve agent that they believed was produced in Russia.
Yulia Skripal was released from the hospital in April after being treated for the nerve agent attack. Her father was discharged in May.
The sanctions are expected to take effect on or around Aug. 22. During a briefing with reporters, a State Department official said the U. S. will limit exports to Russia of goods and technology considered to be sensitive on national security grounds.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in exports could be blocked under the sanctions, the official said.
Penalties could be waived for space-flight activities and U. S. foreign assistance, the official added.
According to the State Department, the Kremlin was notified on Wednesday afternoon about the penalties, as were U. S. allies.
The conclusion of the U. S. investigation comes several months after U. K. authorities reached a similar conclusion in April, accusing the Kremlin of breaking an international ban on chemical weapons.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) in March issued a formal request for the Trump administration to also probe the matter to see if Russia should face sanctions.
The request gave the government two months to conduct its investigation, a timeline that expired in mid-May. The State Department downplayed the delay, citing similar investigations into Syrian and North Korean actions that also dragged on beyond the two-month window.
The White House did expel 60 Russian diplomats from the U. S. in March over the poisoning.
Wednesday’s announcement comes nearly one month after President Donald Trump held a one-on-one summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Trump was criticized for not pressing Putin aggressively on several issues, such as election meddling, during a press conference after the meeting.
In the weeks since, the Trump administration has organized a briefing of top national security officials to call out Russia’s ongoing attempts to spread disinformation in America. The State Department also called out Russia after Facebook announced it had removed nearly three dozen propaganda pages, some of which linked back to prior Kremlin information warfare efforts.
Trump himself, however, has remained relatively silent regarding Russia’s online trolling and had not commented on Twitter as of late Wednesday afternoon about the latest Russia sanctions.
Still, Republican lawmakers were quick to praise the administration’s actions.
Royce, despite expressing frustration about the missed deadline in a letter sent two weeks ago to the president, called the sanctions „key to increasing pressure on Russia.“
„Vladimir Putin must know that we will not tolerate his deadly acts, or his ongoing attacks on our democratic process,“ he added in a statement.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the assassination attempt was „another example of [Russia’s] reckless and destabilizing actions on the world stage.“
„We must stand with our British allies, and I’m pleased to see the Trump administration hold Russia accountable for its actions by imposing additional sanctions,“ he said in a statement.
