The German government has sharply criticized tit-for-tat sanctions imposed by Moscow in retaliation to EU sanctions related to the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.
"From the point of view of the federal government, such a step is of course unjustified and inappropriate," government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said at a November 12 press conference. "Russia has all the means to solve this crime, instead the Russian foreign minister announces sanctions against officials of other states."
The comments came after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced a day earlier that Russia was imposing sanctions on leading officials in Germany and France in response to asset freezes and travel bans imposed by the European Union and Britain against six Russian officials believed to be responsible for the "attempted assassination" of Navalny in August.
Navalny fell severely ill aboard a plane on his way from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow, prompting the plane's emergency landing in the city of Omsk.
He was transferred later to the Charite clinic in Berlin, where doctors concluded that he had been poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent commonly known as Novichok.
