Moscow warns Washington against imposing new sanctions

MOSCOW. Sept 23 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has warned the United States against passing another bill of sanctions against Russian officials and public figures.

"Yet again, we would like to warn Washington against an ill-considered move on the sanctions track," Zakharova said in a commentary on the ministry's website.

The Rules Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has approved an amendment to the 2022 defense appropriations bill, which recommends that sanctions be imposed on 35 Russian officials and businessmen suspected by the committee of bearing a relation to the violation of human rights.

"We consider it premature to comment on this sort of initiative, which, by the way, has yet to take the shape of a law," Zakharova said.

"In all likelihood, whatever is happening now in Washington is a consequence of an acute shortage of specialists, especially those on our country. Only people with no clue about Russian realities could have drawn up such a list of individuals in relation to a topic none of them has, nor could have, anything to do with, directly or indirectly," she said.

The potential blacklist includes Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, and Governor of the Moscow Region Andrei Vorobyov.

Russian journalist Margarita Simonyan, Channel One head Konstantin Ernst, journalist Vladimir Solovyov, and businessmen Alisher Usmanov, Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska, and Gennady Timchenko are also on the list.