Moscow is outraged by Prague’s decision to extradite Russian citizen Yevgeny Nikulin to the US, as this step undermines the foundations of cooperation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday, TASS reports.
"We are outraged at the Czech Republic’s extradition of Russian citizen Nikulin - who was apprehended at Washington’s request and held in custody since October 2016 - to the United States," the statement reads. "We are disappointed that instead of taking legal norms into account, the Czech Republic has made a decision seeking to once again show loyalty to its ally, which has been declared an absolute priority recently," the Russian Foreign Ministry added. "We consider the decision made by Prague to be a deliberate and politically motivated step aimed at undermining the constructive foundations of bilateral cooperation," the statement says.
"We will take all the necessary measures in order to ensure the rights and interests of the Russian citizen," the Foreign Ministry stressed.
The ministry pointed out that "the request to hand Nikulin over to Moscow, filed by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, was ignored, as well as our calls for taking into account the fact that given the anti-Russian hysteria in the United States, our citizen cannot be given a fair trial in that country." According to the ministry, all of this points to the violation of legal norms in Nikulin’s case.