MOSCOW, May 18. /TASS/. Russia will take measures to respond to the United States’ sanctions against the Chechen special unit Terek of Russia’s National Guard (Rosgvardiya), the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday.
"Naturally, we will not leave these sanctions against Russian citizens unanswered. The US authorities must know that their confrontational conduct will bring no good," the ministry stressed.
The ministry noted that these sanctions mean that Washington is seeking to reduce to nil the positive dynamics that emerged after US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s talks in Russia. "Two days after the US secretary of state’s visit to Russia, Washington has taken yet another hostile step. It looks like it is seeking to reduce to nil the positive atmosphere of the talks and demonstrate to itself its own anti-Russian drive," the ministry said.
Moreover, such actions by the US authorities make it impossible to bring relations with Russia out of the deadlock. "It is a profoundly erroneous and counterproductive policy that makes it impossible to bring the bilateral relations out of the dead end," it stressed.
The US Department of the Treasury on Thursday complemented the so-called Magnitsky Act sanction list with the Chechen special rapid reaction unit Terek and five Russians, including the unit’s commander Abuzaid Vismuradov and four other persons - Gennady Karlov, Sergei Kossiyev, Ruslan Geremeyev and Yelena Trikulya.
The Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was adopted by the US Congress and signed by President Barack Obama in December 2012. It envisages unilateral sanctions against Russian officials who from the United States’ point of view are responsible for human rights violations in their own country.