US accused of meddling in Russia affairs

Russia says the United States publication of a list of Russian officials targeted for sanctions under the so-called “Magnitsky Act” amounts to interference in its internal affairs.

On Friday, Washington imposed sanctions on 18 Russian officials suspected of having ties with the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.

According to the Interfax news agency, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a Russian television station on Sunday that Russia regards Washington’s action as “direct interference in its domestic affairs.”

He added that the move is “a blow to Russia-US bilateral relations.”

The comments came a day after that Russia’s Foreign Ministry in retaliation for Washington’s move released its own blacklist of American officials “implicated in human rights violations.”

The ministry said in a statement that “The war of lists is not our choice, but we cannot ignore outright blackmail.”

The statement added that the Russian blacklist “primarily includes those who are implicated in legalization of torture and perpetual detentions in Guantanamo prison, to the arrests and kidnapping of Russian citizens.”

David Spears Addington, the chief of staff for former Vice President Dick Cheney; the US district judge Jed Rakoff, FBI agent Gregory Coleman as well as Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller and Ad. Jeffrey Harbeson — two former commanders of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp — are among those named in the list.

Moscow has already denied entry to a former US senior commander at the notorious Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba where the United States keeps terror suspects.

The Magnitsky Act was passed in the US on December 6.