Press Secretary Jen Psaki reiterates the administration’s tough-on-Russia stance.
On Tuesday, the U.S. intelligence community released a declassified report revealing that Russia interfered in the 2020 U.S. election.
The White House elected to declassify this report and release it to the public in hopes of raising awareness across the country and world of Russia’s actions, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. The Biden administration is attempting to use transparency as a strategy to combat Russia’s attempts to increase the polarization of the nation.
“[Russians] are going to pay a price, as the President conveyed last night, we are not going to look the other way,” Psaki said.
In response to the released report, President Biden promised that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “pay a price,” for interfering in the election. Subsequently, Russia withdrew its U.S. ambassador, Anatoly Antonov. After requesting the ambassador return to Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman said that they were interested in “rectifying Russia-US relations” and the prevention of an “irreversible deterioration in relations.”
“Our administration is going to take a different approach in our relationship to Russia than the prior administration,” Psaki said.
During the White House Press Briefing on Wednesday, Jen Psaki said that the administration requested new or declassified Intelligence Community assessments on the Kremlin. The administration will respond to those reports and ongoing reports in the coming weeks.
This report comes just weeks after Biden announced that he would be imposing sanctions on Russia after the completion of an investigation into the poisoning of Alexi Navalny.