U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, left, and an aide walk toward the Senate chamber in the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 12, 2018. A bipartisan group of senators is planning to ramp up the sanctions against Russia, but Washington is unlikely to go to extremes in pressuring Moscow.
The standoff between the United States and Russia shows no signs of abating, and nowhere is the discord more apparent than in Washington's use of sanctions against Moscow . Washington expanded its sanctions against Moscow on Aug. 27 by banning the export to Russia of sensitive national security-related goods, including calibration equipment and gas turbine engines, after the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom in March. The present export ban is just the first installment of the sanctions measures, as a second round could enter force in 90 days if the Kremlin does not provide "reliable assurances" that it will stop using chemical weapons and permit the United Nations to conduct relevant inspections in Russia.
