The Swedish Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador because of Moscow's retaliatory sanctions

The Swedish Foreign Ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador to protest Russia's retaliatory sanctions against EU citizens, according to Le Matin.

“Unlike EU sanctions, (...) Russian sanctions are arbitrary, legally vague and are an expression of political motives,” the publication quoted a ministry spokesman as saying. The head of the Laboratory of Chemical, Biological, Radiation and Nuclear Safety Asa Scott was on the sanctions list of Moscow. it was this laboratory that confirmed the conclusions of German experts that the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned in August 2020 with a military nerve agent from the same group as the Novichok poison.

Earlier, Mats Samuelsson, a spokesman for the Swedish Foreign Ministry, told TASS that the Foreign Ministry plans to summon Russian Ambassador to Sweden Viktor Tatarintsev to protest over Russia's sanctions against European officials.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on April 30, which provided a list of citizens of EU member states who were restricted from entering Russia. The list includes President of the European Parliament David Sassoli, Head of the Prosecutor's Office of Berlin Jörg Raupach, Head of the Laboratory of Chemical, Biological, Radiation and Nuclear Safety of the Total Defense Research Institute of Sweden Osa Scott, Deputy President of the European Commission, European Commissioner for Values ​​and Transparency Vera Jurova, President of the Latvian National Council for electronic media Ivars Abolins, DIRECTOR of the State Language Center of Latvia Maris Baltins, member of the French delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Jacques Mayer, head of the language department of the Republic of Estonia Ilmars Tomusk.