New US sanctions over chemical weapons would be 'illegal': Kremlin

MOSCOW:  Russia would consider any new chemical weapons-related sanctions imposed by the United States to be illegal, a Kremlin spokesman said on Wednesday.

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it would impose additional sanctions on Russia after Moscow failed to give reasonable assurances it would not use chemical weapons after a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in England.

“We consider restrictions imposed by the United States against Russia illegal,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

It is pertinent to mention here that Kremlin said on Wednesday that it saw no prospects for an improvement in relations between Russia and the United States following the U.S. midterm elections in which the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives.

The House victory will give the Democrats the opportunity to block President Donald Trump’s agenda and open his administration to intense scrutiny, and congressional sources say the Democrats will try to harden U.S. policy towards Moscow.

Trump’s fellow Republicans expanded their majority of the U.S. Senate in the Tuesday vote.

“We can say with a large amount of confidence that of course no bright prospects for normalising Russian-American relations can be seen on the horizon,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

Peskov said it was up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump to continue dialogue.

The two leaders will meet briefly in Paris next week, Peskov said on Tuesday, and could have a longer meeting at the summit of the Group of 20 nations in Argentina at the end of the month.