Sen. Tom Cotton on Friday called the Trump White House's new sanctions against seven Russian oligarchs and 17 government officials, including President Vladimir Putin's son-in-law, "another strong move by the administration to rein in Russian aggression across the globe."
"After all the mayhem they've caused in Ukraine and Syria, and the cyber-attacks they've launched against the U.S., Putin's cronies should pay for their crimes, not profit off them," the Arkansas Republican said in a statement.
Putin's son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov, who operates in the Kremlin's energy sector, was among the seven Russian oligarchs and 17 government officials targeted by the Trump sanctions.
A dozen Russian companies owned by the oligarchs were also sanctions, along with a state-owned arms exporter and a subsidiary bank, the Treasury Department said.
But Moscow promised a "tough response" Friday in the continuing diplomatic crisis sparked by the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in London.
"We will not let the current attack, or any new anti-Russian attack, go without a tough response," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.
"Having obtained zero results from the 50 previous rounds of sanctions," the ministry continued, "Washington continues to employ fear with the refusal to issue American visas, the threatening of Russian businesses with the freezing of companies' assets and property, while forgetting that the requisitioning of private property and other people's money is known as theft."
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