The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Saturday that his country was prepared to respond in kind to any additional sanctions that the US imposes on Russia.

The US Congress passed a law mandating restrictions on Russian weapons companies and investors in high-tech oil projects which is now waiting for President Obama’s signature to become operational. The new sanctions are a further response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last March, and their support of pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

“We will not be able to leave that without an answer,” Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

Russia has consistently denied supporting the rebels with arms or otherwise but that has not prevented the west, including the US and the EU, from imposing economic sanctions in increasing severity on large companies as well as individuals.

Russia has already reacted to past sanctions by restricting the importation of food from a wide range of Western countries. Russia responded with harsh words to the latest congressional action, the Ukraine Freedom Support Act. The Act mandates further sanctions, to which Russia responded by saying that the law will “destroy the carcass of cooperation” between the US and Russia.