RIA Novosti: Russia believes West will continue sanctions – top diplomat

(RIA Novosti – Moscow, August 4, 2014) Moscow believes that Western countries will continue to exert pressure on Russia by means of sanctions, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said.

“I think, there is a real threat which one should not underestimate: that the itch of sanctions won’t end with this [i.e. the current sanctions]. They will scratch it further, until a wound opens up, until it bleeds,” he said in an interview to Golos Rossii radio station.

The diplomat called the introduction of sanctions was a step that neglected the fundamentals of international law. “We have not undertaken any hostile actions neither against the USA, nor against the European Union, Canada or even Ukraine, for what it’s worth. Nevertheless, the unstoppable unwinding of the spiral of sanctions continues with no breaks, without any attempt to put it into perspective,” Ryabkov said.

According to him, there is “no reason to say that it [the introduction of sanctions] is a catastrophe”. Ryabkov added that Russia feels a negative effect of the US, EU, Canadian and some other countries’ sanctions in the form of growth in the cost of regular economic activity. At the same time, it will be hard for the USA, the EU and other countries to lift the sanctions. “We are not underestimating that either. But it is obvious that those countries won’t reach the goals they are aiming for with their policy of sanctions – they will diminish chances to cooperate on other issues that might be of interest to them. Because this cannot go unanswered,” Ryabkov said.