U.S. Declares Economic War on Russia With New Sanctions

There used to be a bar in downtown Moscow called Sanctions, featuring caricatures of Western politicians and serving only Russian booze—a one-stop summation of President Vladimir Putin’s attitude toward the efforts of the U.S. and Europe to economically kneecap his country. Putin and his Kremlin-controlled propaganda machine have a history of shrugging off sanctions, despite a 55 percent crash in the value of the ruble, a collapse in foreign investment and rising inflation. Russia, Putin boasts, will always survive the West’s efforts to destroy it.

That narrative will be aggressively tested in the coming months should the U.S. government make good on the harshest economic sanctions ever ­imposed on Russia.

There are three separate efforts to inflict ­economic pain. On September 12, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that declared election interference a “national emergency” and authorized sanctions on foreign companies, institutions or individual meddling. The Office of ­National Intelligence would take charge of assessing any ­potential interference. Although the executive order isn’t directed solely at Russia—the administration said it was also concerned about China, Iran and North Korea—it was instigated by Russian hacking during the 2016 election, currently being ­investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump’s order was an attempt to forestall Congress, which, on the same day, voted through the first stage of legislation aimed at more severe and ­pointed punishment of Russian election interference. Trump’s cordiality toward Putin has been startling—as in Helsinki this past July, when he appeared to credit Putin’s denials of election interference