Russian state media portrayed the meetings, coming days before President Trump’s planned summit with Putin next week, as good news for Russia.
In their Moscow meetings with members of Russia’s parliament last week, an all-Republican delegation of US members of Congress met with at least two individuals currently sanctioned by the United States.
In a meeting with the Duma, parliament’s lower house, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama reportedly told Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, “I’m not here today to accuse Russia of this or that or so forth. I’m saying that we should all strive for a better relationship.” Volodin has been sanctioned since 2014 for Russia’s “illegitimate and unlawful” activities in Ukraine.
In their meeting with the Federation Council, parliament’s upper house, the group listened as Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Konstantin Kosachev complained about the latest round of sanctions against Russian individuals. Kosachev was sanctioned in April over alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and “malign activity.”
In addition to Shelby, the delegation consisted of Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, and Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, all of whom voted in favor of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act in the summer of 2017 — the legislation intended in part to make it more difficult for the president to lift sanctions on Russia.
The offices of the congressional delegation provided neither a full list of the members of parliament with whom the delegation met nor comment on their meetings with sanctioned individuals.
US law does not prohibit US officials from meeting with individuals who’ve been sanctioned, although it does prohibit providing services to them, and it is perhaps unsurprising that a congressional delegation meeting with high-level Russians would include meetings with sanctioned individuals — the point of the sanctions put in place last April was to target those perceived to be close to the Kremlin.
And a meeting is a far cry from a removal from the sanctions list. “The only way names are likely to come off the list is if there’s a formal sanctions rollback in return for progress on Ukraine, Syria, cyber or some other specific issue cited in sanctions declarations,” Matthew Rojansky, director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, wrote in an email.
Still, coming ahead of next week’s Helsinki summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly stressed that Russia denies meddling in the election that brought him to the White House, the congressional delegation’s meeting raised eyebrows in Washington. In an email, one Democratic congressional aide said that “Committee leadership did hear from stakeholders who agreed meeting with sanctioned Duma members was simply the wrong move.”
Asked for comment by BuzzFeed News, Thune’s office sent a press release distributed after the meetings that suggested the senator had taken a tough line. “During our meetings, we stated in no uncertain terms that Russia must stop its meddling in our elections and that its destabilizing actions in the region are not without consequence. The delegation also stressed that Russia respect the sovereignty of Ukraine and help bring about a peaceful resolution in Syria,” the release read.