MOSCOW, February 4. /TASS/. Russia stands ready to respond to any restrictions imposed by the US, the legislative foundation is prepared to do so, Chairman of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Committee for Foreign Affairs Leonid Slutsky told reporters Thursday, commenting on the recent bill submitted to the US Senate envisioning sanctions against Russia in light of the developments involving Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny.

Slutsky slammed this initiative as "theater of the Absurd" and "dull anti-Russian hysteria" because there is not any proof of Navalny’s alleged poisoning. "From the international law viewpoint, the US will legislatively interfere in affairs of the sovereign Russian state and put pressure on the judiciary if they impose sanctions over the Navalny case," he said, noting that "restraining Russia through any means possible remains a key goal for Washington."

"I am certain that all these attempts are doomed to fail. Russia responds to all restrictions with reasonable countermeasures, thoughtfully and shrewdly, without any aggression or hysteria. The relevant legislative base and legal instruments have already been created," the lawmaker assured.

The bill entitled Holding Russia Accountable for Malign Activities Act of 2021 has been brought before Congress by US Senators Marco Rubio (Republican, Florida) and Chris Coons (Democrat, Delaware) who were joined by Senators Ben Cardin (Democrat, Maryland), Mitt Romney (Republican, Utah), Chris Van-Hollen (Democrat, Maryland) and Dick Durbin (Democrat, Illinois). Senator Rubio’s press team reported that the act envisions "targeted sanctions against Russian officials complicit in brazen violations of international law including the poisoning and imprisonment of opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny."

Navalny saga

Navalny was rushed to a local hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20 after collapsing on a Moscow-bound flight from Tomsk. Later, he was airlifted to Berlin and admitted to the Charite hospital. On September 2, Berlin claimed that having examined Navalny’s test samples, German government toxicologists had come to the conclusion that the blogger had been affected by a toxic agent belonging to the Novichok family. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeatedly emphasized that Russia was ready for comprehensive cooperation with Germany and pointed out that no poisonous substances had been detected in Navalny’s system prior to his transfer to Berlin. On January 17, Navalny was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport upon arrival from Berlin.

On February 2, Moscow’s Simonovsky District Court replaced Alexey Navalny’s suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher embezzlement case with a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence in a medium-security prison. He will remain at a detention facility until the court’s decision becomes effective.