MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. The actions of the US Treasury in relation to GAZ Group can be interpreted as the application of pressure if they are not related to procedural issues, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

"We are confident that the company's lawyers will deal with this, they are in constant contact with their American partners on the matter," he said. "Of course, this can be interpreted as an increase in pressure if it is not connected with some procedural issues. I would like to hope that this is in no way connected to the sanctions," he added.

"Only yesterday we heard [US Secretary of State] Mr. [Antony] Blinken's statement that it is absolutely unreasonable to talk about some a priori sanctions against Russia," Peskov said. "On the other hand, there are so many contradictory things going on overseas that sometimes it is very, very difficult to analyze and even more so to understand," he added.

Earlier, Reuters reported that the US Treasury reduced the extension of the deadline for completing transactions with the Russian holding GAZ Group, as well as the period for US investors to get rid of its shares due to the alleged possibility of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

At the end of December 2020, the general licenses for the holding were extended for about a year. Their terms expire on Wednesday, and now the US authorities are only extending them for 90 days due to the situation around Ukraine. The US Treasury press service has not yet responded to the request from TASS to comment on this information.