US Senate backs legislation to slap new sanctions on Russia

The bipartisan legislation passed overwhelmingly Thursday, 98-2, more than five months after USA intelligence agencies determined Moscow had deliberately interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Iran component of the legislation, authored by Corker and Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), expands sanctions on Iran for ballistic missile development, support for terrorism, transfers of conventional weapons, and human rights violations.

The decisive bipartisan vote could put the Trump administration in a bind. So the White House would have to reject stricter punishments against Iran, which it favors, in order to derail the parts of the legislation it may object to. It would make congressional approval necessary if Trump seeks to suspend or ease sanctions imposed on Russian Federation over its apparent cyberattacks during the 2016 USA election campaign. A bipartisan group of senators pushed the addition of Russian Federation sanctions into the bill earlier this week, as well as adding provisions that reaffirmed the country's. That measure reflected Republican complaints that Obama had overstepped the power of the presidency and needed to be checked by Congress.

Russia's interventions in Ukraine and Crimea and its support of Assad in the Syrian war are the other stated reasons for the sanctions, aside from the hacking that USA intelligence agencies say Russian Federation engaged in aggressively with the alleged aim of helping Trump beat Hillary Clinton last November.

Senators say the bill won't impede enforcement of the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Obama's former secretary of state, John Kerry, had raised that prospect on the eve of the Foreign Relations Committee's vote on the bill last month.

The rare bipartisan move was a blow to the Trump administration, which is looking for room to negotiate with Russian Federation. He's instead castigated his own intelligence community and rejected its assessment that Russia's hacking and disinformation campaign was meant to aid his candidacy.

The measure would then apply new sanctions against Russian Federation for its activities in Syria, where the Kremlin is supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and for its meddling in last year's USA presidential election.

Then-President Barack Obama in late December ordered sanctions on Russian spy agencies, closed two Russian compounds and expelled 35 diplomats the US said were really spies.

"This amendment also takes appropriate steps to ensure that current sanctions can not be unilaterally unwound by this administration", Shaheen said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that the Kremlin seeks to avoid a "pique of sanctions" in response to the US Senate's newly proposed sanctions against Russian Federation but called for patience until the measures are codified.