The action came as the administration declassified an intelligence finding that the F.S.B., one of Russia’s leading intelligence agencies, was responsible for the poisoning of Aleksei A. Navalny.
The Biden administration on Tuesday declassified an intelligence finding that the F.S.B., one of Russia’s leading intelligence agencies, orchestrated the poisoning of the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, and announced its first sanctions against the Russian government for the attack and his imprisonment. The sanctions closely mirrored a series of actions that European nations and Britain took in October and expanded on Monday. Senior officials said it was part of an effort to show unity in the Biden administration’s first confrontations with the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. But none of the sanctions were specifically directed at Mr. Putin or the oligarchs who support the Russian leader. Just as President Biden held back last week from direct sanctions against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia for his role in the operation that killed Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident, the American sanctions did not touch Russia’s senior leadership. Mr. Navalny’s supporters praised the sanctions announced on Tuesday, although the measures fell well short of the sweeping action that the opposition leader’s team had called for as he was being sentenced to two and a half years in prison. One of Mr. Navalny’s top allies, Vladimir Ashurkov, sent Mr. Biden a letter in January arguing that only sanctions on top Russian decision makers, along with the business figures he said held their money, could “make the regime change its behavior.” “The most painful sanctions, which, unfortunately, neither Europe nor the United States have yet reached, would be sanctions against oligarchs,” Maria Pevchikh, another Navalny ally, posted on Twitter on Tuesday. In announcing the role of the F.S.B., or Federal Security Service, in the poisoning, American intelligence officials were confirming the reports of many news organizations, some of which traced the individual agents who tracked Mr. Navalny and attacked him with Novichok, a nerve agent that Russia has used against other dissidents. It was unclear if the United States planned to release a formal report, as it did last week when it confirmed two-year-old findings on Mr. Khashoggi, or whether it would simply summarize the key finding in the Navalny case. The sanctions are notable chiefly because they are the first Mr. Biden has taken in the six weeks since he became president. While most presidents have come into office declaring they would seek a reset of relations with Russia, Mr. Biden has done the opposite. He has warned that Mr.
