MOSCOW, February 2 /TASS/. US decision to expand the Magnitsky sanctions list has dealt another blow the Russian-US relations, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

"A decision of the Barack Obama administration to expand the notorious Magnitsky list of sanctions, which has long been used for groundless accusations against Russian officials, is delivering another blow to the bilateral relations. The United States is methodically destroying their foundation by regularly spreading lies about Russia," the Russian Foreign Ministry said adding that the tragic fate of the Russian lawyer [Sergey Magnitsky] was nothing more than a small coin in Washington’s dishonest campaign aimed at discrediting Russia.

"Washington’s hypocritical assessment of the human rights situation in Russia has long stopped being surprising. We are dealing with a policy that allows keeping Russian national Ravil Mingazov as a prisoner at Guantanamo military base for more than 13 years. It is a policy, which encourages US security services to literally abduct our compatriots abroad," the Russian Foreign Ministry went on to say.

The US authorities first locked up Konstantin Yaroshenko and Roman Seleznyov in jail and are now intentionally denying them proper medical aid, the ministry went on to say.

Other well-known scourges of the US reality include racially-motivated arbitrary actions of the US police and the far from ideal state of the US penitentiary system, which ought to be a source of primary concern for Washington, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

"It is also noteworthy that it was the United States that officially legalized and actively used medieval torture early in the 21st century. We remember that," the Russian foreign policy agency said.

"We are publishing a list of five US law enforcers banned from entering Russia in retaliation for the US policy of anti-Russian sanctions," the Russian Foreign Ministry concluded.