Russian parliament speaker calls new U.S. sanctions Obama’s “hysterics”
NAN-F-18
Sanction
Moscow, Jan. 10, 2017 (dpa/NAN) New U.S. sanctions against individual Russians, is a manifestation of the “hysterics” of departing President Barack Obama and his administration, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Tuesday.
Fellow lawmaker Andrei Lugovoi, who was one of the five Russians targeted in the latest extension of U.S. sanctions, said the measure was absurd.
Lugovoi, a prime suspect in the murder of a former KGB agent in Britain, Alexander Litvinenko, joked that he might as well be accused of using performance-enhancing drugs in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The new sanctions also included Alexander Bastrykin, who heads Russia’s federal Investigative Committee, an equivalent to the U.S. FBI.
In December, Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats on allegations that Russian hackers infiltrated U.S. Democratic Party computers to influence November’s presidential election.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had announced at the time that he would not conduct a reciprocal response.
Republican Donald Trump, publicly praised Putin and vowed to rebuild U.S.-Russian relations, becomes president on Jan. 20. (dpa/NAN)
(Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Julius Enehikhuere)