The United States Forwarded a Condition for Russia to Avoid New Sanctions

The US State Department urged Russia to abandon chemical weapons to avoid new sanctions over Navalny, RBC reported. "We call on Russia to declare and destroy any undeclared chemical weapons program under international supervision," a spokesman for the US State Department said. The State Department noted that according to the 1991 law on the control of chemical and biological weapons in force in the United States, Russia is threatened with new sanctions due to the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. Earlier, the European Union for the first time imposed sanctions under the new global regime for human rights violations against four Russian citizens for the arrest of Alexei Navalny. The United States, following the EU, announced introducing sanctions against Russia. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow is already working on countermeasures to the new restrictions from the United States. Earlier, the Russian authorities stated that the last kilogram of chemical warfare agents available in the Russian Federation was destroyed on September 27, 2017. Thus, Russia has 100% fulfilled its obligations under the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, having eliminated about 40 thousand tons of toxic substances. According to the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, Moscow is complying with all the obligations under the Convention.