“DDue to gross interference in the internal affairs of Russia and activities that do not correspond to diplomatic status, the ambassadors of the United States, United Kingdom and Canada have been summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, the Russian State Department said in a statement.

Although the Russian Foreign Ministry has not explicitly given the reasons, local news agencies report that Moscow was unhappy with criticism from these three countries over the sentencing of Russian-British opponent Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova hinted that the three ambassadors – American Lynne Tracy, British Deborah Bronnert and Canadian Alison LeClaire – will be told “to remember what diplomats owe or must not do”.

On Tuesday, Russian diplomacy supported the court’s decision and denounced the “flagrant interference” of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada in Russian “internal affairs”.

Kara-Murza was sentenced by a Moscow court to 25 years in prison for “high treason”, spreading “false information” about the Russian military and illegal work for an “undesirable organization”.

The opponent was sentenced to a cumulative term of 25 years in a penal colony, which leads to stricter conditions of detention.

Kara-Murza denied the charges, which he considered political in nature, and compared the legal proceedings he faces to trials under the government of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

The charges against Kara-Murza, 41, also relate to the speech he gave on March 15, 2022 in the House of Representatives in Arizona, United States, in which he denounced Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russian investigators added the charge of treason while the opponent was already in police custody, after being arrested on April 11, 2022.

Arrested in January 2021 after his return from Germany, where he had recovered from an attempted poisoning which he attributed to the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, opponent and anti-corruption activist, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. prison for a fraud case registered in 2014 and which he denounces as a politician.

On Monday, the United States considered that the Russian opponent is the victim of “the intensification of the campaign of repression” led by the Russian government.

“We call for the immediate release of Kara-Murza, as well as the more than 400 political prisoners in Russia,” read a statement from the US State Department, in which Washington considers that the conviction was based on “grounds policies”.

On the same day, and in a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry considered “a direct interference in Russian affairs” the reaction of the British government to the condemnation of Kara-Murza, refeindo being always “unacceptable” the words of the British ambassador in Moscow about the sentencing.

The United Kingdom, like Germany, protested the conviction of Kara-Murza for high treason and other crimes, considering it a “politically motivated” decision and demanding the “immediate release” of the Russian opponent, also of British nationality, announcing the summons of the Russian ambassador.

“The UK will continue […] calling for the immediate release of Kara-Murza,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

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