THREAT

Russia Warns of ‘Painful’ Response If Trump Backs Sanctions

Moscow gets ready for retaliation.

Russian officials warned they will retaliate against new sanctions passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday. The new measure—to advance financial penalties in response to interference in the 2016 election—doesn’t “leave room for the normalization of relations,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Konstantin Kosachyov, the chairman of the international affairs committee in Russian parliament, also wrote on Facebook that hope is “dying” for such improved relations and that the coming response from Moscow will be “painful for the Americans.” Kosachyov said the scale of “the anti-Russian consensus in Congress makes dialogue impossible.”