Russia announced on Monday that it will respond to the sanctions imposed by Britain on it, and said that the sanctions will push bilateral relations towards more sophistication, while the United States welcomed the new British sanctions, which come against the backdrop of human rights violations inside Russia and other countries.
"Russia reserves the right to take reprisals in connection with the anti-UK decision," the Russian embassy in London said in a statement.
Among the Russians on the new sanctions list is Alexander Bastrykin, the executive director of the Russian Federal Investigation Commission, a body directly linked to the Kremlin and charged with conducting high-level investigations.
Magnitsky dossier
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Rapp announced yesterday the imposition of sanctions on foreigners accused of human rights violations, including 25 Russians accused of involvement in the death of Russian lawyer and tax advisor Sergey Magnitsky inside his prison in Moscow in 2009.
Britain announces its list of sanctions after its exit from the European Union and includes officials from Russia, North and Saudi Arabia, due to human rights violations https://t.co/YROtiwKA8I
- ZaidBenjamin (@ ZaidBenjamin5) July 6, 2020
The British minister added in a speech Monday to the House of Parliament (Parliament) that the law would freeze those involved in human rights violations and prevent them from entering the Kingdom.
The new British sanctions included 20 Saudis, including high-ranking personalities, on charges of liquidating Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his country's consulate in Istanbul, in addition to punishing two officers from Myanmar on the background of violations against Rohingya Muslims, and the sanctions extended to two North Korean organizations accused of involvement in forced labor practices and torture, And the killing inside the camps in North Korea.
Interfax news agency quoted a Russian diplomatic source as saying that the British sanctions against Russia make it difficult to improve relations between the two countries, adding that "the British have not learned from the experience of recent years by choosing decisions that they believe are valid for reasons incomprehensible."
American welcome
On the other hand, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed the new British sanctions, which he said reinforced accountability against gross violations of human rights. Pompeo added in a tweet on Twitter that the United Kingdom is a close partner of the United States in the promotion and protection of human rights.
It is noteworthy that relations between London and Moscow have deteriorated in recent years due to disputes over the conflicts in Syria and eastern Ukraine, and Britain accuses Russia of poisoning former Russian agent Sergey Skripal and his daughter in Britain in 2018, charges that Russia denied.