'Destabilizing and Unacceptable': State Dept. Issues New Sanctions Against ‘Malign’ Russian Actors

Monica Sanchez | September 30, 2019
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The State Department announced in a press release on Monday new sanctions on “malign” Russian actors for their efforts to interfere in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections.  

The State Department said this action “on four entities and seven individuals associated with the Internet Research Agency and its financier, Yevgeniy Prigozhin,” should “serve as a warning” and that the Trump administration has “been clear: We will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections.”

The statement reads,

Let this serve as a warning: any actors who continue to engage with these individuals, companies, aircraft, or vessel may also be subject to future sanctions. The U.S. government will continue to work to ensure that Prigozhin and others like him find no refuge or comfort as long as they carry out destabilizing activities that threaten the interests of the United States and its allies and partners.

We have been clear: We will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections.  The United States will continue to push back against malign actors who seek to subvert our democratic processes and we will not hesitate to impose further costs on Russia for its destabilizing and unacceptable activities.

The State Department did not give many specifics, other than how the sanctions will increase “pressure on Prigozhin by targeting his luxury assets, including three aircraft and a vessel.”

"The new sanctions are the first imposed under an executive order the president signed a year ago warning countries against interfering in elections," as CBS News reports. “The Internet Research Agency was the entity behind the Russian government's disinformation campaign in the 2016 campaign, according to the U.S. intelligence community.”

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