The Russian Foreign Ministry has commented on the possible extension of sanctions by Canada.
“What concerns the response, of course, it will follow. And very quickly, immediately after the expected announcement of the lists, Canada had been speaking about. The lists of our citizens who may come under these unacceptable Canadian sanctions,” Ryabkov said.
“We have given all assessments to this law, unacceptable from all viewpoints, which considerably complicates relations with Canada that are already experiencing hard times… We are making the sole conclusion from what happened: politicians for whom bilateral relations with Russia are insignificant, who pursue their own goals, trying to play cheap geopolitical games, still set the tone in Canada,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Sputnik.
The Russian deputy foreign minister also mentioned the Canadian analog to the Magnitsky Act, which allows sanctioning any foreign official suspected of corruption or human rights violations, which came into effect last week. The minister called the move unacceptable and noted that it complicates bilateral relations.
“It is clear to us and we do not dramatizing what is happening. This is the choice of the Canadian side, and it will not affect our policy and firm course in any way,” he said.
The Moscow’s position on the issue has been previously voiced by Andrei Klimov, the head of the commission on state sovereignty protection of the Russian Federation Council, who called Canada’s possible sanctions an unfriendly step and also spoke about a mirror response.
In May, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland mentioned that the country’s parliament was discussing imposing sanctions against foreign officials who could be linked to violations of human rights in their respective countries. Moscow has repeatedly warned Canada against the adoption of the law.
The US was the first country which introduced the so-called Magnitsky Act, approved in the end of 2012. The law let Washington to impose both travel bans and financial sanctions on Russian officials which were allegedly connected with the Sergei Magnitsky’s death and his trial.
Sergei Magnitsky was a lawyer in the London-based Hermitage Capital Managementhedge fund. He was arrested in Moscow in 2008 on tax evasion charges and later died of heart failure while in prison. An official investigation into his death was closed due to lack of criminal evidence.
In 2015, the US Senate adopted the so-called Global Magnitsky Act, expanding Russia-specific human rights and corruption sanctions to other countries.