“We can only regret these hostile measures,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.
Moscow:
Moscow will apply counter-sanctions against Britain, the Kremlin said on Tuesday after London blacklisted Russian officials for their alleged involvement in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
“We can only regret these hostile measures,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters.
“Obviously, the principle of reciprocity will be applied,” he added, without further details.
The 25 Russians on the sanctions list drawn up by the British Foreign Office have been included for their alleged involvement in the death of Magnitsky.
Magnitsky, tax consultant to British financier William Browder, died in prison of an untreated disease in 2009 after accusing Russian authorities of $ 230 million in tax fraud.
Russian officials targeted by the sanctions include Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the powerful investigative committee reporting directly to President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian embassy in London denounced the sanctions on Monday, saying the country’s legal system was “independent” from the executive and “guided by law only”.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that the sanctions targeted individuals implicated in “some of the most notorious human rights violations of recent years”.
Britain has also sanctioned a number of people from Saudi Arabia and North Korea.
London has accused Russia of “destabilizing” activities, including the 2018 chemical attack that nearly killed former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter.
Russia has dismissed accusations that officers from its GRU military intelligence agency used a potent nerve agent to poison Skripal in retaliation for his work with British and Western spy services.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
