MOSCOW, October 21. /TASS/. The Russian Foreign Ministry jointly with both houses of the Russian parliament (Federation Council and State Duma) will work on a legal response to the US sanctions against Russia, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS on Saturday.
"The situations, which have emerged from the US destructive policies against Russia, are overlapping," he said. "We realize that in order to structure our line of counteraction, our counter-game more effectively we, possibly, will need certain additions and clarifications to the current legal base."
"Whether that would be a "merged" legal act - I am not sure whether it may be possible at all, but I am confident, that improvement of the legal base is likely to be necessary," he said. "We shall jointly with other federal authorities, with our lawmakers continue this work."
Currently, everything is at the stage of intensive discussions, he added.
"You have heard signals from both houses [of the parliament]," he continued. "We as representatives of the Foreign Ministry also said more than once that with the ongoing attempts of pressing the Russian media, perhaps, we shall have to make certain changes to our legislative and regulative bases in order to have opportunities of mirror response to the US pressure against our media."
Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Foreign Affairs Leonid Slutsky said earlier that Russia could give not only a diplomatic but also a legislative response to the US decision to expand sanctions against Moscow.
Moscow may respond to Washington’s anti-Russian sanctions both at the diplomatic and legislative levels, the lawmaker said. "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.