Russia believes that further degradation of relations with the United States is inevitable

The United States is taking a step “towards destroying the prospects for normalizing relations” between the two countries, which are already complicated in the light of the events in Ukraine, Syria and the conflict around Russian diplomatic property.

This view was expressed by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov after voting in the House of Representatives of the US Congress, which by an overwhelming majority voted for adoption The new package of sanctions in the relations of Russia.

The bill limits the ability of US President Donald Trump to relax sanctions against Russia in connection with its intervention in the recent presidential elections.

The document also provides for the introduction of new sanctions.

Provisions on new supervisory powers of Congress were introduced to the bill after negotiations between Republicans and Democrats and procedural delays that lasted more than a month.

The new bill was supported by 419 members of the House of Representatives, and only 3 voted against. The document also includes sanctions against Iran and North Korea.

“What is happening does not fit into the framework of common sense,” Ryabkov said in an interview with the TASS government news agency. “The authors and sponsors of this bill are making a very serious step towards destroying the prospects for normalizing relations with Russia.”

Ryabkov, who recently visited Washington for talks at the State Department, believes that the adoption of the bill by the House of Representatives is a deliberate choice of the enemies of Russia, who, as he put it, “completely let themselves go and do not know what I’ll keep in my rage”.

“Accordingly, we will perceive today's America. Washington is a source of danger, the deputy minister said. “This should be understood and acted upon, in accordance with this understanding: balanced, reasonable and calm.”

The Deputy Foreign Minister is convinced that the sanctions bill will quickly receive approval in the US Senate, but warned that a quick response will follow from Russia.

“Dozens of times have said that these actions will not go unanswered,” he said.

However, it is not clear how quickly the bill will end up in the White House and will fall on President Trump’s table, which may sign or veto it.

The senate has just plunged in the debate about reforming the health care system, what is happening in recent days before the summer holidays of lawmakers who want to deal with affairs before leaving Washington.

The head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Leonid Slutsky, for his part, said that "the anti-Russian flywheel, launched by the Obama administration, will continue to destroy everything in its path."

“Of course, extended restrictions undermine the possibility of restoring Russian-American relations and complicate them even more in the foreseeable future. At the same time, the possibilities of diplomatic maneuvers for decoupling the Gordian knot in the Russia-US dialogue are reduced to an extremely small extent, ”the head of the committee emphasized.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council, Konstantin Kosachev, warned that now further degradation of cooperation between Russia and the United States is becoming inevitable.

“Judging by the monolithic voting in the House of Representatives on the sanctions package against Russia, Iran and the DPRK, there will be not only a breakthrough, but also normalization,” he wrote on his page in Facebook. “Moreover, further degradation of bilateral cooperation is becoming inevitable, although it seems that there is nowhere else to go.”

Kosachev believes that Russia's reaction should be "not symmetrical, but painful for Americans."

The senator is convinced that tensions in bilateral relations with the United States will now continue for a long time, and therefore Russia needs to build relations with the rest of the world.

“The world has definitely not converged with the wedge on the USA,” he stressed.

For his part, the deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, Franz Klintsevich, warned that the tightening of the US sanctions could launch a new “cold war”.

“I think that now there is no point in saying what exactly our response will be to the introduction of new sanctions against Russia,” Klintsevich said. “One thing is clear: if this law comes into force—and the US President must understand this—Russian-American interaction to resolve the most important international problems, including countering international terrorism, will be extremely difficult, if not impossible.”