MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. The period preceding the March 15-17, 2024 vote in Russia’s presidential election will be marked by pressure from Western anti-Russian sanctions, according to the annual report by the Ad Hoc Commission on Protecting State Sovereignty and Preventing Interference in the Domestic Affairs of the Russian Federation of the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, or "senate."

"According to the experts of the Federation Council commission, the pre-election period in early 2024 is likely to be accompanied by an intensification of illegal anti-Russian sanctions pressure, and such [pressure] that, in the view of its initiators, can at least somehow influence the course of the election campaign," the document published on the Federation Council website said.

The commission pointed out that it is to be expected that Russian citizens will be used for this purpose, with some Russians deliberately enlisting in efforts by those forces that officially consider Russia their adversary. "In this regard, the commission recalls Article 284.2 of the Russian Criminal Code (‘Calls for the Introduction of Measures of a Restrictive Nature against the Russian Federation, Citizens of the Russian Federation or Russian Legal Entities’)," the statement said.

The document stressed that such illegal sanctions are not the result of the special military operation or the upcoming presidential election, but of Washington’s strategic decision, formally enshrined in US law by the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, in which Russia was named an adversary. "And the law itself proposes that the US government periodically inform Congress about the tightening of this type of sanctions and 'recommends' that all of America's allies join this unilateral sanctions policy, essentially on a mandatory basis," the statement said.

Members of the commission note that the period allocated for preparing for and holding the country’s most important election requires maximum consolidation of public authorities and civil society. "In connection with the abovementioned facts, the Federation Council's Ad Hoc Commission on Protecting State Sovereignty and Preventing Interference in the Domestic Affairs of the Russian Federation from the moment of the announcement of the date of the election of the president of Russia begins continuous monitoring of external threats to the electoral sovereignty of Russia," the lawmakers concluded.