LONDON, August 1. /TASS/. The Russian embassy in the UK has called the UK’s introduction of sanctions against six Russian citizens in connection with the sentence of publicist Vladimir Kara-Murza (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia) "an attempt to interfere in Russia’s domestic affairs," a diplomat told TASS.

"We regard the introduction of the July 31 UK sanctions against six Russian nationals in connection with the case of Vladimir Kara-Murza as an unacceptable attempt to interfere in the domestic affairs of our country. The UK government does not conceal that the goal of this action is to impede the work of the Russian judicial system, trying by external pressure to influence the already pronounced verdict. However, this is not the first time we have come across such arrogance," the diplomat said.

"We remind everyone that London’s unilateral sanctions in this or any other case run counter to the norms of international law and are legally void," he added.

On Monday, the UK blacklisted prosecutors Boris Loktyonov and Anna Potyshko, judges Vitaly Belitsky, Yekaterina Dorokhina and Natalia Dudar, as well as judicial expert Danila Mikheyev. They are all banned from entering the UK territory and their assets on the territory of the country will be frozen if discovered.

On April 17, the Moscow City Court sentenced Kara-Murza to 25 years in a maximum-security prison and fined him 400,000 rubles ($4,880), banned him from any journalism-related activities for seven years, and ruled that his freedom be limited for six months after his release from incarceration. According to the court ruling, he was found guilty of crimes stipulated under Part 2, Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code (RCC) ("Public Dissemination of Knowingly False Information About the Deployment of the Russian Armed Forces"), Part 1, Article 284.1 of the RCC ("Execution of Activities of a Foreign or International Organization Whose Activity Has Been Declared Undesirable on the Territory of the Russian Federation"), and Article 275 of the RCC ("High Treason"). On July 31, the First Appeal Court upheld the decision of the Moscow City Court.

Previous sanctions

On April 21, in connection with the verdict in the Kara-Murza case, London introduced sanctions against Yelena Lenskaya, the judge who ruled on the publicist’s detention the year before, as well as prosecutors Denis Kolesnikov and Andrey Zadachin. The case against Kara-Murza, who also holds a British passport, has been labeled by the Foreign Office as "politically motivated" and is characterized as a part of the state campaign allegedly aimed at depriving Russians of "the truthful information about the Ukrainian conflict and scaring those who stand against it."

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) employees Konstantin Kudryavtsev and Alexander Samofal were also sanctioned for allegedly spying on Kara-Murza and being involved in what the UK Foreign Office describes as attempts to poison him in 2015 and 2017.