Kremlin says US blacklist another move to degrade ties

The Kremlin deplored on 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 said Washington’s decision to blacklist Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin and Litvinenko’s alleged assassins, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, represented “further steps in the artificially created degradation of our relations”.