For months, the Trump administration has known about it: Russian military intelligence had secretly been offering bounties to Taliban-related militants to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan, including American troops. They paid out rewards for successful attacks that took place last year.
The administration’s response is summarized in this paragraph from the New York Times:
The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.
…and later on in the article:
The disclosure comes at a time when Mr. Trump has said he would invite Mr. Putin to an expanded meeting of the Group of 7 nations, but tensions between American and Russian militaries are running high.
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