JRL NEWSWATCH: “Trump Adds to Sanctions on Russia Over Skripals” – New York Times/ Michael Crowley, Julian E. Barnes

August 3, 2019 JRL Russia List Assassinations, Beatings, Threats, Chemical Weapons, Biological Weapons, ChemBio, JRL NewsBlog, Sanctions, Terrorism, United States, U.S.-Russian Relations

File Photo of White House with South Lawn and Fountain

“… Trump … signed an executive order imposing new sanctions on Russia, responding to growing pressure from Congress to further punish Moscow after a nerve agent attack …. the second round of sanctions by the administration after a botched attempt in March 2018 to fatally poison a former Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, in … Salisbury [in the UK]. The attack put … Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, into a coma, and sickened at least three others. One of them, … British woman … Dawn Sturgess, died. American and European intelligence officials accused Russia of staging the attack [which] Moscow has denied ….”

Just a day earlier, Trump had called Putin about the enormous Siberian wildfires. Neither the White House nor the Kremlin mentioned sanctions publicly when commenting on the call.