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Diplomat says Washington ‘indecently revengeful’ towards Russia

"During the remaining 10 days of its stay in power, the Obama administration may mess things up," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov noted

MOSCOW, January 10. /TASS/. Washington is being indecently revengeful by again extending the sanctions against Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said in a commentary published on the Foreign Ministry’s website on Tuesday.

"The White House is showing indecent revenge trying to deal a blow against us, although it understands very well that these efforts are vain and doomed," Ryabkov said. "It is clear that during the remaining 10 days of its stay in power, the Obama administration may mess things up, also to complicate as much as possible the further work for those who will come after it. Such a behavior is shameful."

The diplomat noted that the fourth hostile move over the past three weeks of the outgoing US administration that broadened the sanctions against Russia on January 9 signals the "inadequacy" of the Washington authorities who have "sanctions craze."

"Over the past years, the Barack Obama administration has tested many means of how to try to harm us," Ryabkov said. "Lately, its bad manners and blatant Russophobia were combined with anger over the presidential elections which its candidate lost and the intention to search for those guilty of its defeat anywhere else but not in itself."

On January 9, the US Department of the Treasury added five more Russian individuals to its blacklist under the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russian officials whom the US believes to be responsible for human rights violations.

The new blacklist includes Russian MP Andrei Lugovoi and businessman Dmitry Kovtun, who are accused of allegedly killing ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, as well as Russian Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin, Stanislav Gordiyevsky and Gennady Plaksin. According to Russian mass media, Plaksin previously headed the Universal Savings Bank and Gordiyevsky is a former Investigative Committee official.