US Senate Democrat Chris Van Hollen and Republican Marco Rubio have submitted for consideration an amendment on new sanctions against Russia to the U.S. defense budget - the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2021.

The amendment envisages the application of the draft law “On protecting elections from threats by marking red lines”, DETER (Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines), introduced by Van Hollen and Marco Rubio back in 2018.

“The DETER law conveys a clear and powerful message to Russia and any other foreign entities seeking to disrupt the course of our elections. The meaning of this message is this: if the goals of your attacks will be American candidates, election campaigns or the election infrastructure, then you will have swift and grave consequences, ”the statement on the website of Senator Van Hollen said.

According to the bill, after any federal election, the National Intelligence Director’s opinion should be submitted to Congress on whether there has been a foreign intervention in the voting process and the election campaign. For example, if Russia’s intervention is declared in the conclusion, the President of the United States is required to impose sanctions on a number of Russian companies, government agencies, and individuals within 30 days.

In his commentary on the amendment, Democratic Senator Van Hollen said they allegedly knew "that foreign opponents are already planning to intervene in the upcoming elections."

As Yuri Rogulev, director of the F. Roosevelt US Studies Foundation at Moscow State University, explained in a conversation with RT, American senators are now trying to use every opportunity to re-include Russia in the US election agenda and prevent Trump from expanding American policy towards improving American Russian relations.

“Democrats are pretty much afraid that due to the aggravation of relations with China, if elected for a second term, Trump will again try to improve relations with Russia,” the expert noted.

The essence of the bill

The DETER bill states that after any federal election (that is, presidential, as well as elections to the Senate and Congress), the head of the US National Intelligence should find out if foreign states interfered in the democratic process.

In the event that it is established that such an intervention has taken place, the head of the National Intelligence Service must inform Congress what kind of government or foreign entity participated in this process. The bill separately stipulates that the director of the National Intelligence Service should provide the parliament with a list of Russian high-ranking political figures or oligarchs who directly or indirectly contributed to the intervention, if its fact is established.

  • Senators Chris Van Hollen and Marco Rubio
  • Reuters

As a sanction measure, if “Russian interference” in the US election is proved, the bill involves blocking the assets and restricting the activities of the following financial institutions: Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Vnesheconombank and Rosselkhozbank.

In addition, it is proposed to introduce a ban on investments in the energy sector of the Russian Federation and on operations with Russian sovereign debt.

Undoubtedly, statements about Russia's “intervention” are just a pretext for introducing new measures, Rogulev emphasized.

“But on this issue there is more of a political component than an economic one, since the United States has already blocked Russia’s opportunities to develop trade and economic relations from all sides, especially when it comes to such important Russian products that could be delivered to the American market,” expert added.

Obsessions

Senators Van Hollen and Rubio have been trying to get the DETER bill in one form or another since 2018, when the document was first submitted to both houses of Congress.

Despite the fact that such countries as Iran and North Korea are mentioned in the text of the bill and in the statement of the senators, the document has a clear anti-Russian focus and sees the main purpose of the sanction against Russia.

  • Reuters
  • © Joshua Roberts

In 2019, the adoption of the bill was blocked by Republican Senator Mike Crapeau. He motivated his decision by the fact that this bill is aimed at restricting the freedom of the Trump administration.

After blocking the bill in the Senate, Van Hollen and Rubio tried to adopt DETER as an amendment to the defense budget. Then, despite the fact that the document was again rejected, some of Rubio’s proposed sanctions against companies participating in the Nord Stream 2 project were nevertheless adopted at the end of 2019.

Now, in the light of the latest events taking place in the USA, plus taking into account the difficult epidemiological situation and the ongoing political struggle, the probability of adopting this bill, albeit in a truncated form, is quite high, said Konstantin, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with RT Blokhin. According to the expert, in advance accusing Russia of crimes that it did not commit, the US authorities are trying to shift the vector of popular discontent.

“Washington is trying to turn arrows from all its internal socio-political problems, which the American elites themselves could not solve, to the external enemy - Moscow,” the political scientist explained.

The expert believes that the introduction of a disproportionate number of sanctions under far-fetched pretexts is aimed at worsening the socio-political situation and destabilizing Russia. And to justify such an action, the most superficial evidence is enough, Blokhin added.

“Evidence can be fabricated, as, for example, in the case of the Skripals in the UK. In addition, in the USA they can say that sanctions were imposed on the basis of certain reports of intelligence services, and when the time passes and the public asks to confirm the sources, they simply admit that there is no evidence, ”the expert said.

According to Yuri Rogulev, the drafters of the bill are not worried about the presence of any factual evidence of “interference”, except for the superficial conclusions of the American intelligence services.

“When the United States took the previous package of sanctions against Russia, they raised the issue of applying sanctions only after the facts appear. After that, a special law was passed to counter countries that are fighting the United States and trying to counteract them in the international arena. In this case, restrictive measures will be introduced regardless of whether evidence of such interference is presented or not, ”the political scientist concluded.