Russia Retaliates For Sanctions Approval, Hitting At US Diplomatic Corps

The US Senate gave final approval to legislation strengthening sanctions on Russian Federation and giving Congress the power to block President Donald Trump from lifting them, setting up a possible clash with the White House.

Speaking just before the Senate passed the bill, Republican Senator John McCain, a leading congressional voice calling for a firm line against Russian Federation said: "The United States of America needs to send a strong message to Vladimir Putin and any other aggressor that we will not tolerate attacks on our democracy".

The new package of sanctions aims to hit President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle by targeting alleged corrupt officials, human rights abusers and crucial sectors of the Russian economy, including weapons sales and energy exports.

The bill - which also includes measures targeting North Korea and Iran - is created to restrict Mr Trump's ability to lift punitive measures on Moscow.

The proposed measures target Russia's energy sector as part of legislation that prevents Trump from easing sanctions on Moscow without congressional approval.

The high level of bipartisan support is important because it means a Trump veto on the bill would be easy to override. The sanctions measure has already passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 419-3.

"The countries could overcome more critical problems by taking joint action", Putin said.

The White House issued a statement on Friday night saying Trump had negotiated changes to the legislation and now intends to sign it.

The North Korea sanctions are created to punish the country for its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. According to the Chair of the Federation Council's (upper house of parliament) Foreign Relations Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, the official Russian reaction must follow after the sanctions bill becomes law and "must pain the Americans".

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"We are behaving in a very restrained and patient way, but at some moment we will need to respond", Putin said at a news conference after talks with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto. "The second step is to halt financing U.S. companies by European banks", Chizhov noted, stressing that those measures could not be compared with the amount of possible damage to European businesses in case the bill would be implemented in its current version. Senator Alexei Pushkov, former chair of the Duma's Foreign Relations Committee, proposed that Russian Federation might fine or possibly close down McDonald's restaurants in Russian Federation for alleged breaches of sanitary regulations "as part of our political and economic warfare strategy". Signing the measure would dilute his power.

Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov explained what steps the European Union may take against the U.S. bill expanding Russian Federation sanctions.

Trump can impose new sanctions at any time through an executive order.

Gabriel said in a statement: "It remains the case that we will in no way accept an extraterritorial application of these USA sanctions against European companies". "It's impossible to tolerate boorishness toward our country forever".

Some former officials said Russia could take other steps, such as seeking to help Russian-backed forces seize more ground in eastern Ukraine or to try to limit United States air operations in Syria, while others said any reaction might be more muted.

Moscow's decision, which had echoes of the Cold War, was announced by the Foreign Ministry a day after the US Senate overwhelmingly approved new sanctions on Russian Federation.

"This goes beyond all reasonable bounds", Putin said.

"This practice is unacceptable - it destroys internatioanl relations and global law", Putin said of sanctions.