Yesterday the Russian business newspaper Kommersant published a full draft of the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act (DESKAA), a bipartisan US Senate bill that would impose more economic sanctions on Russia. You can read the draft at Kommersant’s website.
So what, you might ask? Here’s what: The bill’s draft was secret, and the US public had not seen a copy. But the Russians had a copy. How do you suppose they got it? And why are Russians privy to US legislation that the American public has not seen?
DESKAA would be a big deal. It would ban Russian state banks from operating in the US, penalize multinational energy companies that invest with Russians in energy projects, require the Trump administration to list known Russian hackers and oligarchs and to estimate Putin’s wealth, and set up a new Sanctions Office to coordinate. John E. Herbst of the Atlantic Council said yesterday:
This bill is the latest example of a more assertive Congressional role in foreign policy prompted by concerns about some of the policy inclinations of President Trump. At a minimum, it seeks to limit the president’s ability to make undue concessions to the Kremlin or to weaken our NATO alliance.
And publication of the DESKAA draft was a pretty big deal, too. It led to a rout in Russian financial markets yesterday, with the ruble dropping to its lowest value in over 20 months due to fears that elements of the bill might become law. Natasha Doff, Artyom Danielyan, and Rita Nazareth reported in Bloomberg News:
“The Kommersant publication was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Denis Davydov, an analyst at Nordea Bank in Moscow. “It’s important to be able to read and assess the actual bill.”
There’s little chance that DESKAA will get through Congress and President Trump unscathed. Energy multinationals are opposed to further impediments to their doing business with Russians, and the Russians are lobbying Trump and congressional Republicans, with all that this implies. It is no coincidence that so many Republican Senators have been in Moscow in the last few weeks. Regular US citizens won’t get much of a say in all this, unfortunately; at least, not until November’s elections.
P.S. Kommersant’s name is “Коммерсантъ” in Cyrillic, using a traditional spelling that dates back to tsarist times. It might be a good idea to learn the ins and outs of Cyrillic if you want to know what is going on with Trump and the Republicans.