Kremlin says US blacklist additions another move to degrade ties

Moscow (AFP) – The Kremlin deplored Tuesday the United States’ blacklisting of a high-ranking official and the prime suspects in the 2006 murder of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko as a move that further damages bilateral ties. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Washington’s decision to blacklist Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin and Litvinenko’s alleged assassins, lawmaker Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, represented “further steps in the artificially created degradation of our relations”.