Russia has no intention of drawing up long list of unfriendly countries, Kremlin assures

Russian Politics & Diplomacy July 01, 2021, 18:24

"This is the list of countries, which really overstepped the boundaries of common sense through their unfriendly behavior towards Russia," Dmitry Peskov pointed out

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/. Moscow is not going to include an enormous number of countries on its unfriendly nations list, only those, which overstepped the boundaries of common sense through their ill-disposed behavior towards Russia, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"Everything is obvious regarding this list," Peskov said speaking in an interview with Russia’s Channel One television broadcaster. "No one is going to overindulge here by including a huge number of countries on the list".

"This is the list of countries, which really overstepped the boundaries of common sense through their unfriendly behavior towards Russia," the spokesman added.

Touching upon Prague’s demands that Russia pay compensation for the damage caused by the explosions at an ammo storage facility in the village of Vrbetice in 2014, Peskov said, "the whole story with the Czech Republic can be hardly analyzed from a common-sense point of view".

"I would say that it is very difficult to comment on this story while staying within the confines of appropriate vocabulary," he insisted. "Indeed, it is impossible to explain this".

On May 14, the official web portal of the Russian legal information posted a list of unfriendly states, which had been approved by the Russian government and included only two countries - the United States and the Czech Republic.

Russian-Czech diplomatic crisis

In April, the Czech authorities claimed that Moscow was allegedly involved in blasts that erupted at an ammo storage facility in the village of Vrbetice in the eastern part of the country in 2014 that resulted in two deaths. The Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian diplomats, who were allegedly "officers of Russian intelligence services" after that.

The Russian Foreign Ministry lodged a strong protest over this step taken "under conjured-up and ungrounded pretexts" and declared 20 employees of the Czech Embassy in Moscow personae non gratae.

On May 31, the head of the Czech Republic’s Foreign Ministry stated that the country’s authorities continue to support the idea of demanding monetary compensation from Russia for the damage incurred by the explosions at the ammo depots in the village of Vrbetice in 2014.

According to him, Prague had already drafted a corresponding inquiry to Moscow. Earlier this year, Czech Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Alena Schillerova said the Czech Republic intended to claim at least 1 bln koruna (approximately 39 mln euro) from Russia as compensation for the material damages in question.

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