A group of American senators submitted to the US Congress a bill on sanctions against Russia over the situation around Alexei Navalny.
The authors of the document, called the 2021 Law to Hold Russia Accountable for Malicious Activities, were Democratic Party members Mark Rubio, Chris Koons, Ben Cardin, Chris Van Hollen, Dick Durbin, and Republican Senator Mitt Romney.
“This bill provides for targeted sanctions against Russian officials involved in flagrant violations of international law, including the poisoning and imprisonment of opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny,” Senator Mark Rubio said in a statement on its website.
As for the restrictions, we are talking about the freezing of assets and the refusal to issue visas.
In addition, the bill contains a call for the "immediate release" of Navalny.
In addition, the US presidential administration was ordered to determine whether the Russian authorities "violated US laws prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons", as well as to provide a report on the assassination of Boris Nemtsov and collect information about the financial condition of President Vladimir Putin and his entourage.
Another paragraph of the document is dedicated to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
“According to Congress, the Secretary of State should urge the German government to withdraw its support for the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, and also emphasize the unacceptability of participating in a project that would support a government responsible for killing its citizens for drawing attention to corruption and others. abuses, and at the same time will make Europe more dependent on the destabilizing and unreliable leadership of the Russian Federation, ”the document says.
At the same time, the day before, the State Department reported that they would continue to monitor the situation around the completion of the construction of a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany and, if necessary, would consider the issue of imposing sanctions.
© REUTERS / Hannibal Hanschke
Note that in September 2020, this group of senators submitted to the US Congress a similar bill on sanctions against Russia due to the situation with Navalny.
In that document, the congressmen also called for "bringing to justice" Moscow also for "malicious actions in Belarus" and "interference in the American elections" - now these items do not exist.
In addition, on January 31, the media reported that the Anti-Corruption Foundation * called on US President Joe Biden to impose sanctions against 35 people, including against "eight high-ranking Russians close to Vladimir Putin."
According to the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov, in this way this fund "de jure and de facto demonstrated its status of a foreign agent."
In turn, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, commenting on the possibility of the West imposing anti-Russian sanctions due to the situation around Navalny, said that these countries do not need a reason to implement such actions.
“They don't give a damn about the crux of the matter, that's for sure.
They need any excuse.
If it is, they will get it from the darkest corner, if it is not there, they will invent it or create it, ”Zakharova said on the air of Soloviev LIVE.
"Interference in the internal affairs of Russia"
First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov, commenting on the bill of American senators on sanctions against Moscow due to the situation with Alexei Navalny, called the situation interference in the internal affairs of Russia.
"The criminal offense that Navalny committed (and he was not given a new term, he was changed the measure of restraint for systematic violations) - they presented it as political persecution, although there is no politics there," Dzhabarov told RT.
According to Dzhabarov, Washington is trying to "rock Russian society" by imposing sanctions.
“Lavrov has already said that if they think that we are showing such calmness and that this is our weakness, they are deeply mistaken.
We can always stand up for ourselves.
They will try to put sanctions on the stream, we will live in conditions of sanctions, we are used to this, ”the senator added.
In turn, the head of the Federation Council committee on international affairs Konstantin Kosachev noted that Washington does not miss a single reason to put pressure on Russia
"The rattling of sanctions in this case is also interference in the jurisdiction of the Russian legal proceedings, which, as congressmen and senators should be well aware, is a violation of the basic principles associated with the rule of law," TASS quotes him.
"An attempt to create new obstacles to Nord Stream 2"
At the same time, Vladimir Olenchenko, senior researcher at the Center for European Studies at the IMEMO RAS, believes that the main goal of the bill is to put pressure on the participants in the construction of Nord Stream 2.
“If we peel off all the political layers, then the core of this bill is an attempt to create new obstacles to the completion of the construction of the Nord Stream 2 project, and, moreover, to create preconditions for Washington to try to regulate this activity.
The paradox is that Nord Stream 2 is intended for Germany, in fact, these sanctions are directed against Germany, "he said in an interview with RT.
According to political scientist Vladislav Ganzhara, the whole situation with Alexei Navalny was initially aimed at destabilizing the situation in Russia and forming another round of pressure on the country and its "demonization".
“The United States is interested in weakening Russia's position, in destabilizing relations between the Russian Federation and the EU.
In this vein, the most basic for them is, of course, the Nord Stream 2 project, the Americans tried all sorts of tools, leverage on both Russia and Germany, but, as we perfectly understand, there is a firm position in this regard, as in Berlin and in Brussels.
Now the situation with Navalny will, first of all, be used by the Americans in order to exert maximum pressure on Germany on the Nord Stream 2 issue, - the political scientist explained in a conversation with RT.
* The Anti-Corruption Foundation is included in the register of NPOs performing the functions of a foreign agent, by the decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 09.10.