Comment by the Embassy

The Embassy received requests for visas for the Congressional delegation consisting of senators and their staff. Visas were issued to all members of the delegation, except Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who is in the Russian «black list», which was created in response to US sanctions against our country.

Attempt to present this situation as if the visit was cancelled because of the Russian side is totally biased and untrue. In fact, we proposed different ways out of the situation, including reaching an agreement to issue visas to parliamentarians in the «black lists» on reciprocal basis. Unfortunately, this proposal was rejected by the American side.

More generally, we didn’t create this situation. We have repeatedly offered to Washington to renounce sanctions as a detrimental method of conducting foreign policy. Harm set - harm get.

We are still in favour of resuming inter-parliamentary ties and hope that contacts between the lawmakers of our countries, which were unanimously halted by US Congress, will resume. We insist that parliamentarians should be removed from sanctions lists, and such lists should be abandoned as well.