Interfax: Western sanctions haven’t yet affected Russian economy – Medvedev

MOSCOW. May 26 (Interfax) – Russia has not yet felt the effect of the West’s sanctions, but if they are applied to whole sectors of the Russian economy, European businesses will be harmed equally, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.

“The effect of the sanctions on the Russian economy is absolutely minimal at the moment, if there is any at all,” Medvedev said in an interview shown on a Saturday analytical program hosted by Sergei Brilyov.

“We regularly hear threats that they’ll impose sectoral sanctions on some of our industries, including engineering and including power generation,” he said.

“But we understand what this means. This means that a number of Russia’s export opportunities will be endangered,” Medvedev said. “We have a huge amount of investments coming to the Russian economy from European Union countries and companies, and therefore these relations will be harmed first of all,” he said.

The Russian prime minister is confident that nobody is interested in this, because “it is obvious that such sanctions deal a blow to business interests, primarily European ones,” he said.

Medvedev said he was astounded by “statements made from high forums by people I know and my counterparts that it’s okay that their business would be harmed but they would display solidarity.”

“This reminds me very much of the Socialist camp times, when we displayed some solidarity. As a result, our economic relations were harmed, and we had either to pay someone or, on the contrary, to stop cooperation. Now a number of Western countries are talking about solidarity. If this is solidarity against their own business, well, go ahead. Of course, it won’t be sweeter for us, too,” he said.

[featured image is file photo]