Putin says US sanctions will damage relations
Print Edition
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin yesterday lamented the latest round of United States sanctions against Russia, saying they will stalemate bilateral relations and hurt not only Russian but also American businesses.
Putin’s comments came hours after US President Barack Obama announced broader sanctions against Russia, targeting two major energy firms including Rosneft, a pair of powerful financial institutions, eight weapons firms and four individuals. The increased US economic pressure is designed to end the insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
But the penalties stopped short of the most stringent actions the West has threatened, which would fully cut off key sectors of Russia’s oil-dependent economy. But officials said those steps were still on the table if Russia fails to abide by the West’s demands to stop its support for the pro-Russia insurgents who have destabilized eastern Ukraine.
The insurgents have been fighting government troops in a conflict that the UN says has killed more than 400 people.
Putin said the sanctions were “driving into a corner” relations between the two nations as well as the interests of US firms and “the long-term national interests of the US government and people.”
The most noticeable companies on the list are Rosneft and Russia’s largest independent gas producer Novatek. Both are now barred from getting long-term loans from US entities.
Moscow-based investment bank Sberbank-CIB said in a note to investors that Russian companies cannot replace long-term loans from the US immediately.
Rosneft has a multibillion-dollar deal with ExxonMobil, which among other things allowed Exxon to develop lucrative oilfields in Russia.
“We gave this American company the right to work on the shelf,” Putin said in Brazil, referring to Exxon’s potential exploration on the Russian Arctic shelf. “So, what, the United States does not want it to work there now?”
Russia’s foreign ministry said: “We consider the new round of US sanctions against Russia as a primitive attempt to take vengeance for the fact that events in Ukraine are not playing out to the tune of the script of Washington.”
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the sanctions are throwing Russia-West relations “back to the 1980s.”
Putin made no mention of the additional sanctions levied Wednesday by the European Union, which urged the European Investment Bank to sign no new financing agreements with Moscow and was suspending operations in Russia financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
In Moscow, the Association of European Businesses yesterday expressed its “strong disagreement” with the new US sanctions, saying “these companies and banks are reliable and long-term partners of many European companies.”
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