WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and chair of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, issued the following statement in response to sanctions against Russia announced today by President Joe Biden. Senator Cardin is the lead author of the Sergei Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.

“The Biden administration is holding Russia to account for its malign activities in a direct and transparent manner. I applaud the president for taking bold action in response to Russia’s cyberattacks, election interference, its occupation of Crimea and the war it started in eastern Ukraine, as well as its overall human rights abuses and weaponization of corruption. The president should continue to be frank with Russia about the consequences for their actions.  We will need to stay the course and continue to use the Magnitsky Act and executive authority to further contain this dangerous regime.”

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