On Oct 20, Russia’s foreign ministry said that charges brought by the United States against five Russian nationals for alleged sanctions violations were an attempt to intimidate the business community in Russia and abroad. “The cynicism of this situation is that it is about taking hostages for further political gain,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement. “We view the detention of Russian citizens … for their subsequent extradition to the U.S. as a continuation of Washington’s large-scale campaign to capture Russians on whom the U.S. has ‘claims’, with a view to their subsequent guaranteed conviction by U.S. punitive justice for lengthy prison terms,” she added.
