29 Nov 2012 09:53

Medvedev vows both symmetrical and asymmetrical response to Magnitsky Act

MOSCOW. Nov 29 (Interfax) - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev thinks that the support of the Magnitsky Act by European countries is pointless and vows that Russia will respond to such a decision by the U.S. Congress.

"If we speak about this act, it will invoke both symmetrical and asymmetrical reactions on our behalf. We passed all of these in the Soviet times. Do we need it? I think we don't. And they [the United States] will get nothing good from this," Medvedev said in an interview with the Kommersant daily on Thursday.

"We welcome the fact that the U.S. Congress has finally scrapped the relic of the past, the Jackson-Vanik amendment. But of course we dislike the fact that this is linked to another act," he said.

U.S. attempts to dictate its will to other countries are impermissible, he said. "This, in my opinion, is a huge mistake of U.S. legislators and the U.S. establishment in general," Medvedev said.

"The doctrine of advanced, if you will, U.S. sovereignty is a poor-quality doctrine: when U.S. courts try to consider disputes between foreign people, when the U.S. justice tries to pass a verdict on the whole territory of the planet, when U.S. special services catch people and take them to the U.S. territories to put them under trial or to keep them without investigation and trial