RIA Novosti: U.S. sanctions a new kind of offensive weapon – Russia’s Ryabkov

(RIA Novosti – Moscow, July 3, 2014) The US has turned the tool of sanctions into a new kind of offensive weapons. Russia will not get involved in this kind of arms race but has the right to seek ways to protect itself, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said.

“It seems that the Washington administration has come to the conclusion that sometimes it’s easier and cheaper to apply sanctions than traditionally to project military power. That is to say, we are dealing with a new offensive weapon,” Ryabkov told the newspaper Kommersant in an interview published on Friday [4 July].

According to him, “we (Russia – ed.) are not getting involved in an arms race, we are not going to respond to all these steps like for like”. “We will not do this, but we have to look for an antidote. For each offensive weapon, there must be a defensive one. That is what we will pursue,” Ryabkov said.

According to Ryabkov, because of such actions “the market becomes a foreign-policy tool”, where “prohibited methods are increasingly used, which have nothing in common with market interests and considerations of economic effectiveness”.

“All this is subordinated to the purely geopolitical task of deterrence, and maybe even of regress in the development of a country or countries which, owing to particular features in their foreign policy or something else, do not suit the US… [ellipsis as published] If one resorts to such methods, it means that their arsenal of foreign-policy tools is not that extensive,” Ryabkov said.

The US and the EU have imposed sanctions against a number of Russian politicians, businessmen and companies after Crimea joined the Russian Federation in March as a result of a referendum. The Russian Foreign Ministry has described the sanctions as counterproductive. The West has repeatedly threatened to expand sanctions, including through restrictions on the export of oil and gas industry technology to Russia. Washington wants the EU to be ready to impose another round of sanctions against Russia, which the White House has accused of interfering in the situation in Ukraine. However, there is no unity on this issue among Washington’s European partners. Moscow has repeatedly stated that Russia is not a party to the conflict in Ukraine.

[featured image is file photo]