Biden creates nothing but storm in a tea cup trying to punish Russia

The United States has imposed new sanctions on Russia in connection with the attempted assassination of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Twitter.According to the spokesman for the Joe Biden administration, the US intelligence community came to conclusion that the Federal Security Bureau of Russia (FSB) used the Novichok nerve agent against Navalny in August. "We are neither seeking to reset our relations with Russia nor are we seeking to escalate," White House official spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. The new sanctions are directed against officials of the security bloc, several research institutes and chemical industry enterprises (which allegedly created and supplied chemicals for Novichok poison), research institutes of the Defense Ministry (most of them are under sanctions already), the FSB and the GRU. At the same time, the US side allowed US companies to cooperate with the FSB of Russia as a regulator in the field of import of cryptographic equipment.The US Department of Commerce imposed sanctions on pharmaceutical industry enterprises, including foreign ones. Now these companies will not be able to legally import US products.In a nutshell, the Biden administration has reproduced the sanctions that the Trump administration imposed on Russia for the alleged poisoning of the Skripals.The new restrictions include denial in providing US public aid to Russia (with the exception of humanitarian aid) and arms supplies to Moscow, even though Russia does not receive either the public aid or weapons from the United States. To crown it all, the US government agencies have been prohibited from giving loans to the Russian state.Biden lifted the exemption from Trump's sanctions that allowed exports of goods and technology to Russia for commercial space launches. However, an exemption will apply to US exports aimed at intergovernmental cooperation in space exploration. Exports related to ensuring the safety of passenger aviation will not be affected either.Any sanctions issued by any US administration stipulate that the United States may use any exceptions dictated by national security considerations.