WASHINGTON, August 3. /TASS/. The second round of US sanctions against Moscow over the Skripal case shows Washington's disregard to presumption of innocence, the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. said in a statement released on Friday.
"By deciding to use its Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act, the United States once again showed the entire world its blatant disregard to fundamental principles of a law state, such as the presumption of innocence and the necessity to bear the burden of proof when making accusations, let alone the need to respect the most basic norms of civilized discourse among nations," the embassy said.
"Up till now we haven't seen any proof of Russia's involement in what happened in Salisbury, and the British side has been refusing to cooperate with Russia in the investigation of the incident," the embassy reminded. "Instead, Washington decided to assume the functions of a super-cop and supreme judge with the right to determine who is guilty and impose punitive measures on them. The goal of such policy is self-evident — to penalize those, who refuse to submit to Washington's dictates and defend their own national interests," the embassy noted.
"Russia would not repent and take the blame for what we have nothing to do with in the so-called 'Skripal case'," the embassy stressed.
"It is well known that Russia eliminated all its chemical weapons back in 2017, which was officially confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Whereas the United States has yet to destroy their own chemical warfare arsenals and keeps postponing the deadline for the completion of this process. Therefore, it would be logical for Washington to apply its legislation to itself," the embassy said.
"Attempts to intimidate us by sanctions are futile and will not pay off. Previous rounds of restrictions have not met their intended goals," the embassy stressed.
The statement added that "Russia is a country with a history that spans more than a thousand years, and has always used the privilege to carry out an independent foreign policy." "We will continue to protect a multi-polar democratic world order, based on international law and the principles of the UN Charter. These sanctions games are detrimental to the vital interests of the US itself. We urge Washington to come to its senses and stop reckless actions on destroying Russian-American relations," the embassy concluded.