The announcement of new U.S. sanctions rattled Russia on Thursday, but analysts said the fresh conflict with Washington could boost President Vladimir Putin’s popularity at home despite the economic blow.
A Kremlin spokesman slammed the new sanctions as illegal and repeated that Russia had nothing to do with the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England in March — the episode that sparked the fresh trade restrictions and other measures announced Wednesday by the Trump administration. The spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said it was too early to talk about Russian countermeasures because the full scope of the U.S. sanctions was not yet known.
