The United States is preparing fresh sanctions against Russia over the near-fatal poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, a top White House advisor warned Sunday. President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent, jailed opposition leader Navalny was arrested in January upon returning to Russia after recovering from a poisoning he says was orchestrated by Moscow.

Under the presidency of Joe Biden, diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington have soured. US President Joe Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan noted Sunday that the US has already sanctioned Russia for the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. “We rallied European allies in a joint effort to impose costs on Russia for the use of a chemical agent against one of their citizens on Russian soil,” he told CNN’s State of The Union. 

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However, he also said, “We are preparing another package of sanctions to apply in this case … We’ve shown along the way we’re not going to pull our punches.” Moscow pushed back against the possibility of new sanctions and warned of a Russian response.  Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the illegal actions of the United States have always been followed by a legitimate response from them.

Meanwhile, Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US, said that “this was not the signal that everyone received after the summit” in Geneva last week between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Among other things, the two leaders agreed to return their respective ambassadors — the Russian Antonov and the American Jake Sullivan, withdrawn in tit-for-tat fashion after Biden in March likened Putin to a “killer.”

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Upon his arrival back in New York on Sunday, Antonov said he had just learned of the sanctions threat. “I think that it is not possible to stabilize relations, improve mutual relations between two countries, through sanctions,” he added. 

Biden and Putin sought in Geneva to cool tensions between the US-Russia relationship.  Putin has rejected criticism of his treatment of opponents, where any high-profile critics have been killed in Russia during his rule and the media is almost entirely muzzled, saying that the US had bigger problems. 

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A day after the summit, Kremlin was guarded about future dialogue with Washington. In televised remarks, Putin said, “We are ready to continue this dialogue to the same extent as the American side is.” he also said that the meeting was “quite friendly” and that he and Biden “were able to understand each other on key issues.”