Russia shrugs off US sanctions
THE Kremlin played down yesterday the impact of sanctions imposed by the US and EU over Moscow’s treatment of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, but said it would retaliate with reciprocal measures.
In President Joe Biden’s most direct challenge yet to the Kremlin, the US on Tuesday imposed sanctions to punish Russia for what it described as Moscow’s attempt to poison Navalny with a nerve agent last year.
Navalny, 44, fell ill on a flight in Siberia in August and was airlifted to Germany, where doctors concluded he had been poisoned with a nerve agent. The Kremlin has denied any role in his illness and said it has seen no proof he was poisoned.
Washington imposed sanctions against seven senior Russian officials and on 14 entities. The US acted in concert with the EU, which imposed largely symbolic sanctions on four senior Russian officials.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would hit back in a way that best served its interests.
“Of course it’s impossible not to apply the principle of reciprocity,” Peskov said. “We consider such decisions to be absurd, unjustified and they have no effect or meaning.”
Peskov said the US sanctions would have no effect on the senior officials targeted because they were not allowed to travel outside Russia, own property abroad or hold foreign bank accounts anyway because of the sensitivity of their positions. “This is practically a duplication of the restrictions these people face under Russian law, nothing more,” Peskov said, adding that the sanctions targeting the entities would have more of a material effect.
Regardless of their impact, Peskov warned that the sanctions would have a destructive effect on Russia’s relationship with the US and EU.
Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday the sanctions amounted to interference in Russia’s internal affairs, and that Moscow would retaliate “but not necessarily symmetrically”.
Russian officials have not said when Moscow will announce its reciprocal measures.
Navalny was arrested at a Moscow airport in January on his return from Germany following treatment for poisoning with what many Western countries say was a nerve agent.
He was jailed last month for violating parole on what he said were trumped-up charges, an assertion Russian authorities deny.
European Council president Charles Michel said the EU sanctions showed the EU was united in its commitment to defending the bloc’s values. Speaking in the the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Michel, who chairs EU leaders’ summits, said “it (imposing sanctions) means that we are totally committed and we are united in Europe in order to be very tough, very firm, in order to promote our values, to defend our interests”.
Michel spoke alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who urged the EU to impose more sanctions on Russia over alleged human rights violations in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“I do not believe in a return to business as usual in relations between the EU and the Russian Federation without restoring the territorial integrity of our state,” Zelenskiy said.
The EU and the US have pumped money into Ukraine and promoted its integration with the West. While urging Kyiv to tackle corruption, Michel said “there is no Europe without Ukraine”.
Zelenskiy wants EU leaders to help Ukraine – which has banned the use of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine – to secure Covid-19 vaccines more quickly.
Ukraine has not received any vaccines from EU countries though Zelenskiy said he was in talks with Poland on securing more than 1 million doses. Michel said the EU had given additional financial aid to Ukraine to cope with the pandemic and supported the global Covax scheme for poorer countries to receive vaccines, of which Ukraine is a beneficiary.