MOSCOW, March 5. /TASS/. Moscow will soon publish a blacklist in response to US sanctions, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Channel One’s Vremya Pokazhet (or Time Will Tell) show on Friday.
"Given how they [the Americans] are acting, including the fact that they published all lists at once, I think that we will cheer them up soon. Work is underway. Don’t think that noting is being done if we aren’t talking about it," she said when asked when Russia would respond to US sanctions over the situation around blogger Alexey Navalny.
According to Zakharova, Moscow used to refrain from drawing the public’s attention to Russia’s retaliatory measures. "In fact, we never made these measures public in the past. We would draw up blacklists in response to their blacklists and either inform them or answer their questions. They realize that their officials will be blacklisted," the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman explained.
On Tuesday, Washington introduced a new round of sanctions over the Navalny case against Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Kiriyenko, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov and four more individuals, as well as a number of enterprises and institutions. The US sanctions particularly include a "denial to Russia of any credit, credit guarantees, or other financial assistance" by US government agencies and a "prohibition on the export to Russia" of security-sensitive goods and technology. In addition, the United States’ Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act and the Protecting Europe's Energy Security Act provide for sanctions against participants in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. The European Union also introduced new restrictions over the situation around Navalny.