Russian Embassy Calls US Sanctions ‘Advertising Campaign’ Against ‘Inconvenient Regimes’

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The latest US sanctions against Russia are an attempt to exert pressure on governments that are "inconvenient" for Washington, the Russian Embassy in the United States said.

"The new sanctions against Russian individuals and legal entities are nothing more than an advertising campaign by the US administration, aimed at denigrating the ‘inconvenient’ regimes by labeling them ‘violators of human rights.’ The goals are obvious - to try to exert pressure, to draw artificial dividing lines between ‘real democracies’ and ‘autocracies,’" the embassy said in a Friday comment.

The Russian diplomatic mission said that Washington is attempting to force "other countries to adjust their foreign policy," disguising these attempts as efforts to defend human rights.

"Washington does not slow down its efforts to ‘punish’ Russia for its independent and principled position in international affairs," the embassy said, adding that the "‘Global Magnitsky Act’ is just another marked card in the White House’s deck used for overt interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states."

On Friday, the US Treasury Department announced that the United States was sanctioning over 40 individuals and entities from nine different countries, including Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China, for alleged links to corruption and human rights abuses.

The US Congress adopted the Magnitsky Act in 2012 following the death of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009 after he accused the government of corruption.

In 2016, the US Congress expanded the legislation by adopting the Global Magnitsky Act, which allows the US government to impose sanctions on any entity or individual — regardless of nationality — implicated in human rights abuses or corruption. Other countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, have adopted similar legislation.