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Moscow may pass more legislation to respond to US sanctions — Russian senior diplomat

"It doesn’t matter how our response actions would be shaped, what matters is our determination not to leave the United States’ inadmissible actions unanswered," Sergei Ryabkov stressed

MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/. Moscow is determined to respond to the United States’ inadmissible actions and may pass a new law or amend the existing legislation in response to the US’s sanctions, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS on Sunday.

"Naturally, the arsenal of our response measures include legislation improvement, either in a format of a separate law or through amending the existing legislative acts to respond to the demonstrative and inadmissible measures of pressure on our journalists and companies that due to some reasons may irritate the American ‘advocates of the freedom of speech,’" he said. "So, I don’t rule out a separate legislative act or amendments to the existing laws might be passed."

"It doesn’t matter how our response actions would be shaped, what matters is our determination not to leave the United States’ inadmissible actions unanswered," he stressed. "We have repeatedly said that we will respond to the US sanction measures against us and such response can be either tit-for-tat or not."

Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the Russian State Duma’s (lower house) International Affairs Committee, said on Thursday Moscow may respond to Washington’s anti-Russian sanctions both at the diplomatic and legislative levels. "After ordering to cut the number of staff members of the US diplomatic mission in Russia for parity, Russia reserves the right to take other retaliatory measures," he said, adding that legislative moves to impose response measures would be logical.

On Saturday, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin confirmed that the State Duma was looking at initiating a bill responding to the US’ anti-Russian sanctions. However, in his words, it is too early to go into details.

In late July, the US Congress approved a bill toughening unilateral sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea. The document commits to law the anti-Russian restrictive measures adopted by the previous US administration in the form of executive decrees of former President Barack Obama.

In September, the United States closed three Russian diplomatic facilities in its territory, including the consulate general in San Francisco. These premises were subject to searches.