Russian officials are working on a legal response to U.S. sanctions and preparing a law to "pressure" American journalists in the country, deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov told Russian state media.
The Russian government-funded news outlet RT said the Justice Department asked it to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a tool used to regulate foreign-government lobbying and advocacy in the United States.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday promised a "mirrored response" if the agency were sanctioned, and Russian lawmakers set things in motion Saturday.
"The situations, which have emerged from the U.S. destructive policies against Russia, are overlapping," said Ryabkov. "We realize that in order to structure our line of counteraction, our counter-game more effectively we, possibly, will need certain additions and clarifications to the current legal base."
"Whether that would be a "merged" legal act -- I am not sure whether it may be possible at all, but I am confident, that improvement of the legal base is likely to be necessary," he said. "We shall jointly with other federal authorities, with our lawmakers continue this work.”
Relations between the U.S. and Russia have been poor amid ongoing probes of alleged Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. Earlier this year, the U.S. intelligence community said Russia state-backed media outlets and social media trolls took part in an influence campaign meant to sway voters in favor of President Donald Trump.
"You have heard signals from both houses [of the parliament]," continued Ryabkov. "We as representatives of the Foreign Ministry also said more than once that with the ongoing attempts of pressing the Russian media, perhaps, we shall have to make certain changes to our legislative and regulative bases in order to have opportunities of mirror response to the US pressure against our media."
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