We work on retaliatory against US' hostile step: Russia

NEWS CENTER - Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokeswoman Mariya Zakharova said they will respond to US' fresh sanctions imposed on Russia.

Sanctions tension between Washington and Moscow is growing. Russia is about to take retaliatory measures after the US said on Wednesday it was imposing fresh sanctions on Russia by the end of August within the pretext that Moscow had used a nerve agent against a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britan, which Russia denies it.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that the Russian Central Bank has all the tools necessary to maintain fiscal stability and will use them when necessary.

Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin, says the use of a Russian link to recent UK poisoning incidents to justify fresh US sanctions against the Kremlin is a violation of international law.

"In general, of course, it’s necessary to say that we consider it categorically unacceptable that the new restrictions, that we continue to consider unlawful, are associated with the Salisbury case," Peskov said in his Thursday interview with reporters.

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokeswoman Mariya Zakharova also said that Moscow will absolutely respond fresh sanctions imposed by the United States.

Noting that the fresh sanction imposed by the US was seen as "Washington's hostile step," Zakharova said Moscow is starting to work on retaliatory measures after the United States announced a new round of sanctions against Russia.

Earlier, the US State Department announced the plans to impose new sanctions on Russia over its alleged role in the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK in March. The first package of sanctions is scheduled to come into effect on or around August 22 and will reportedly include a ban on exports of sensitive national security goods to Russia. (ILKHA)