On 15 March, the government of the United States of America issued an expanded list of sanctions. It included 19 individuals and 5 organizations, including 13 people previously accused by the Ministry of justice of involvement in the 2016 presidential elections.
The new sanctions were imposed 1.5 months after the deadline set by the us Congress for the expansion of the sanctions list. Many experts have already begun to doubt whether President trump has the political will to impose additional restrictions. Now we can assume that the answer is received.
The main reason for the expansion of sanctions was the intervention of Russian citizens in the presidential election campaign in the United States in 2016. The special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, engaged in the investigation of this issue at the beginning of 2018, was charged with 13 Russians, including well-known businessman Evgenie Prigozhin, of involvement in the cyber attacks on the United States.
Commenting on the situation, Vladimir Putin said that his country would never extradite its citizens to the us authorities.
"The presidential administration is countering Russia's malicious cyber — activity, such as interference in the election campaign and devastating attacks on critical infrastructure," us Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.