According to a report from Bloomberg, the Biden administration is wrapping up its review of alleged Russian actions and could announce measures against Moscow soon.
One unnamed source told Bloomberg the moves could involve sanctions on individuals close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the expulsion of Russian diplomats the US will claim have ties to Russian intelligence.
The actions would be framed as “retaliation” for the hack of the software firm SolarWinds and alleged election interference. Both accusations are entirely unfounded, as the US has failed to present evidence for either claim.
In January, US intelligence officials claimed the SolarWinds hack was “likely” Russian in origin without offering evidence, and the Russian government has repeatedly denied any involvement. Congressional testimony from SolarWinds’ current CEO and former CEO revealed that the software firm’s password, which was “solarwinds123,” was publicly available on the internet for years. And a cybersecurity expert that used to advise SolarWinds said the hack “could have been done by any attacker, easily.”
Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an assessment that Putin ordered an influence campaign to “denigrate” President Biden during the 2020 election. Again, missing from the assessment was any evidence or an explanation of how US intelligence reached the conclusion.
Another issue that the Biden administration said it was reviewing early on was the claim that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill US troops in Afghanistan. This accusation first appeared in The New York Times last June. But since then, just about every US military leader said no intelligence corroborated the story, and the claim has essentially been debunked. The Russian bounty story has quietly dropped from the list of anti-Russian talking points coming from Biden officials.
President Biden also ordered a review of the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, which the US has already taken action over through sanctions.
The Bloomberg report hinted that the action could go beyond sanctions and the expulsion of diplomats. A report from The New York Times last month said the US was preparing cyberattacks against Russia over the SolarWinds hack.
Senile warmonger! No more wars for lies.
What else does a bankrupt, crumbling , morally empty nation do ? Start a war..
Because that’s where the big money is…
Gee they seem to be picking a fight for some unusual reasons.
“Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an assessment that Putin ordered an influence campaign to “denigrate” President Biden during the 2020 election.”
But that’s ok if Netanyahu did the same, with dead Adelson’s help, in 2012:
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is mulling another run in Israel’s upcoming elections, said, “Our prime minister meddled in the U.S. elections in the name of an American billionaire, who used the prime minister of Israel to promote his own candidate for president. This is a significant violation of the basic rules in the relations between countries, certainly when we are talking about allies such as Israel and the United States.”
Reality does not matter. We are living in post-reality world. Inside a video game.
In what form will waking up happen? Who knows.
We got the losingest warmongers on the planet!
“alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny,”.
You’re doing the same thing here Dave in this article. You accuse of what you do your self..
Its called Journalistic Integrity.
look it up
Let Biden expel some officials, Russia will expel US ones
I really do not think the zionists in state dept appreciate what they are walking into, they are delusional and have NO military experience and/or expertise.
The senior military “leadership” (sic) in the pentagon have become so bloated, 659 general/admirals last count, and so politicized that they too have bought the cool aid of group think, and off we go, as with the horrendous disaster of iraq.
The american public have no voice or are asleep.
Asleep. No reason to wake up. Will go along with any media reality show.
Not even noticing the politicization of military leadership. The only segment of populace that is probably aware of the sleepwalking into war — is military rank and file. But the media power is beyond amendment. What they say is our reality.
We need a more hawkish foreign policy against Russia and China like a hole in the head.
We do not. SOMEBODY does. When our plutocrats ran out of illusions, they create newer, more dangerous illusions.
The only cure is something embarrassing to happen to reveal the grotesque charade of puffed up powers behind the political facade.
Russia already withdrew its Ambassador, with comments by Lavrov himself in the last few days that he would not be back anytime soon.
Relations were bad before. This is really terrible relations.
Why are US spy agencies called Intelligence Agencies, when there is where little of that in evidence.
They are contracted out to Jeff Bezos. And say whatever he fancies.
As if this is not enough, our government data is being stored in “containers”, Amazon owned and managed servers that provide easy life for government IT. Easy, sweet and cheap. Who can resist? The only problem is — who has the physical control and ability to access the information ? To get rid of information, to add information? No, that cannot happen — like it did not happen that private information sharing platforms did not decide on their own “community rules” to decide what is to their liking, never mind what is LAW.
And we go along.
China is right. State can own a corporation, but corporation SHOULD not own the state!
Things seem to be spinning out of control.
We should all be aware that recalling Ambassadors and expulsion of diplomats are among the last things countries do right before the onset of war.