US National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said Russia knows it will pay the price, even if it is not in public, if the allegations about offering rewards to Taliban elements for the killing of US soldiers in Afghanistan are substantiated.
He added, in an opinion piece to the Washington Post, that President Donald Trump - like his late counterpart Ronald Reagan - seeks another path with Russia that refrains from any hostile act abroad, and becomes a friendly partner of the United States and Europe.
He said that in this case, sanctions against Russia would be unnecessary, and trade between the two countries would flourish so that the Russians, Americans and the whole world could benefit from such a relationship.
The article pointed out that Trump imposed two weeks ago additional sanctions against Yevgeny Prigogin, who owns an Internet research agency that had published misleading information about the 2016 US elections, and also owns a security group, Wagner whose mercenaries are spread in Syria, Ukraine and Libya.
The French news agency, and the New York Times, published late June media reports about American officials saying that the Russians were given financial rewards to the Taliban to target American soldiers in Afghanistan, but Trump denied this, and Moscow rejected it and considered it offensive.
The American newspaper revealed officials that at least one American soldier was killed in Afghanistan in exchange for the rewards that Russia paid to the Taliban.