Statement of Under Secretary Sigal Mandelker Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Treasury’s Efforts to Counter Russian Malign ActivityChairman Crapo, Ranking Member Brown, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to speak on behalf of the Treasury Department and provide an update on our comprehensive efforts to counter Russia’s malign activity. Our efforts, taken together with our partners across the U.S. Government and around the world, are guided by a clear understanding of the threat Russia poses to the United States and to our friends and allies.As Russia seeks to challenge the United States and its allies, we see this threat manifest itself in a variety of ways, including by: continuing its occupation of Crimea and ongoing aggression against Ukraine, attempting to subvert Western democracies, including our own, through election interference; enabling the Assad regime’s massacres in Syria; using chemical weapons in an attempt to assassinate a British citizen and his daughter in the United Kingdom; perpetrating