This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
The Kremlin has said it would respond if the United States imposes new sanctions against Russia.
The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes bills that call for new sanctions against Russia to punish it for what lawmakers say are its malign activities.
The NDAA would need to pass the Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden in order to become law. Biden is seeking to stabilize the tense U.S. relationship with Russia and has opposed some new sanctions pushed by Congress.
“We will have to answer wisely,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state TV on September 26.
He did not say how Russia would respond.
The House version of the NDAA includes a bill to sanction Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline and a bill prohibiting U.S. investors from buying Russian debt on the secondary market. U.S. investors are already prohibited from buying newly issued Russian debt.
The Biden administration opposes sanctions on Nord Stream 2, which will carry Russian gas to Germany, because it says it will harm relations with Berlin, a key NATO ally.
A third bill calls on the Biden administration to review 35 Russian officials, politicians, and businessmen for possible sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act.
Peskov is included among those 35 individuals.
