WHITE HOUSE - The United States cannot allow a foreign power to intervene with impunity in American elections, President Joe Biden said Thursday, after he took action to punish Russia for that and a major cyberattack.
"Today I've approved several steps, including expulsion of several Russian officials, as a consequence of their actions," Biden said at the White House. "I've also signed an executive order authorizing new measures, including sanctions to address specific harmful actions that Russia has taken against U.S. interests."
Biden said he told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call earlier this week that he could have gone further but chose to be proportionate and does not seek to escalate tensions between Washington and Moscow.
"If Russia continues to interfere with our democracy, I'm prepared to take further actions to respond," he added.
Thirty-two entities and individuals linked to Moscow are being sanctioned for disinformation efforts and interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Ten personnel from Russia's diplomatic mission in Washington were expelled, including "representatives of Russian intelligence services," according to the White House.
The Biden administration is formally blaming the SVR, the external intelligence agency of Russia, for the massive cybersecurity breach discovered last year involving SolarWinds, a Texas-based software management company that allowed access to the systems of thousands of companies and multiple federal agencies.
The Russian spy agency reacted by calling the accusation "nonsense" and "windbaggery."
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it told U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan that the new sanctions are a serious blow to bilateral relations and that Moscow's response to them will follow soon. The Foreign Ministry, in a statement, added that it was entirely inappropriate for Washington to warn Moscow against further escalation.
Besides Thursday's widely anticipated moves by the Biden administration, "there will be elements of these actions that will remain unseen," said a senior U.S. official speaking to reporters on condition of not being named.
Biden, during his seven minutes of remarks in the East Room on Thursday afternoon, said he believed he and Putin would meet for a summit this summer somewhere in Europe.
At that meeting, the president said, the two countries "could launch a strategic stability dialogue, to pursue cooperation in arms control and security," as well as address such issues as reining in nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, the coronavirus pandemic and "the existential crisis of climate change."
U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, who heads the House Intelligence Committee, said the president's actions demonstrate the United States "will no longer turn a blind eye to Russian malign activity." But Schiff, in a statement, predicted sanctions alone will not be enough to deter Russia's misbehavior.
"We must strengthen our own cyber defenses, take further action to condemn Russia's human rights abuses, and, working in concert with our allies and partners in Europe, deter further Russian military aggression," Schiff said.
"I am glad to see the Biden administration formally attributing the SolarWinds hack to Russian intelligence services and taking steps to sanction some of the individuals and entities involved," said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner. "The scale and scope of this hack are beyond any that we've seen before and should make clear that we will hold Russia and other adversaries accountable for committing this kind of malicious cyber activity against American targets."
Numerous Republican members of Congress, while praising the president's action, are calling for more measures — particularly to halt the controversial Nord Stream 2 project.
"If the Biden administration is serious about imposing real costs on the Putin regime's efforts to undermine U.S. democratic institutions and weaken our allies and partners, then it must ensure the Russian malign influence Nord Stream 2 pipeline project is never completed," House Foreign Affairs Committee lead Republican Michael McCaul said in a statement.
Nord Stream 2 is a multibillion-dollar underwater gas pipeline project linking Russia to Germany. Work on the pipeline was suspended in December 2019 after it became a source of contention between Russia and the West.