The new US sanctions against Russian individuals and legal entities allied to Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya, are far-fetched, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
"Another batch of restrictions, as the Americans have been doing for a long time, is far-fetched and unsupported by evidence. This is a clumsy publicity stunt aimed at imposing the image of Russians as 'human rights violators' on the international public," she said.
"Those who compiled the new restriction lists are very imaginative," she continued. - "They've managed to put an entire football club, well-known outside Russia, under restriction".
Zakharova recalled that earlier the Moscow swimming pool "Chaika" was included in the US sanctions lists. "Obviously, for the reason that it is located in Moscow near the Crimean bridge," she said ironically. - "Someday we'll ask our American colleagues what it was about our country's geography that gave them the idea to 'care' about the football club."
The US Treasury Department on Thursday put on its sanctions list a number of Russian individuals and companies related to the head of Chechnya, whom the US authorities believe to be involved in "serious human rights violations." Kadyrov himself, against whom Washington has previously imposed restrictive measures, was added to the blacklist as part of the Global Magnitsky Act.
The same law imposes restrictions on the Akhmat Football Club, the Absolute Championship Akhmat organization, the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation, the company Megastroyinvest, the Akhmat Mixed Martial Arts Club, and the Chechen Mineral Waters Company. All these legal entities are believed by the US Treasury to be owned or controlled by the head of Chechnya.
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Photo: Press Service of the Russian Foreign Ministry / TASS
Based on materials from TASS