MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/. The statement that German top diplomat Heiko Maas made on the arrest of blogger Alexey Navalny and the January 23 unauthorized protests in Russia is unacceptable, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.

"As for Germany’s statements, particularly the one by Mr. Maas, many of them are perplexing and we will soon inform the German Foreign Ministry that we view such statements as unacceptable," she noted. "Our Western partners have enough of their own problems to tackle. They have work to do at home," Zakharova added.

Heiko Maas condemned the detention of Navalny and participants in the January 23 rallies at a recent meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He called on Moscow to immediately release them and said that the actions of Russian law enforcement officers ran counter to Russia’s obligations within the Council of Europe.