Russia Will Respond To New Western Sanctions - Senior Lawmaker

Russia will respond to new EU and US sanctions over the case of blogger Alexey Navalny, the head of the Russian parliament's upper house's international affairs committee Konstantin Kosachev told Sputnik on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd March, 2021) Russia will respond to new EU and US sanctions over the case of blogger Alexey Navalny, the head of the Russian parliament's upper house's international affairs committee Konstantin Kosachev told Sputnik on Tuesday.

The European Union on Tuesday imposed its first sanctions under the new global human rights violations act against four Russian citizens for the arrest of Navalny. The sanctions list includes Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, Investigative Committee head Nikolai Bastrykin, Federal Penitentiary Service head Alexander Kalashnikov and National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov.

"The decision of the EU and the US is a classic rigging, tossing 'evidence' into an unexplored situation in order to confirm its 'only correct' version of what happened. Those 'guilty' are not determined, but arbitrarily appointed without taking into account the principle of the presumption of innocence," Kosachev said.

If the EU was really interested in establishing the truth, and this is impossible without a full-fledged investigation in Russia, "it would put pressure not on our country, but on its own members, Germany, France and Sweden, obliging them to ensure the transparency of evidence base, that didn't happen," he said

According to the senator, "for the EU and the US, the current situation is important not in itself, but only as a pretext for defamation of the Russian leadership.

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He noted that this is an unacceptable technique in international relations, "and it, no doubt, will meet with a response from the Russian side."

Sanctions against the heads of law enforcement agencies who performed their duties are nonsense, they could not have acted otherwise and violated the law, Alexey Chepa, deputy head of the lower house's international affairs committee, told Sputnik.

"In accordance with the law, and the Germans, as well as everyone else, understand this perfectly well, Navalny had to notify of any actions, that he was resting somewhere or what he did, he must do it. If he did not do it, he broke the law. If you violated the law, then take the punishment. We can say that Navalny was convicted with the consent of the German services that treated him, they all knew it perfectly well, and our law enforcement agencies could not break the law and leave him at large. Therefore, the sanctions ... against people who were obligated to fulfill their duties are, of course, nonsense," Chepa said.