Russia needs to prepare for new sanctions against it, serious work has already begun, said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin, RIA Novosti reports.
“... of course, there is a list of additional measures that are kept under the cloth, which will be involved in those moments, in those conditions when it is deemed necessary,” Pankin said, speaking in the State Duma of the Russian Federation.
Sanctions against Russia are forever, you have to be realistic, said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister.
According to him, the purpose of Western sanctions against Russia is a desire to weaken the unity of the Russian people and marginalize the country in the international arena.
Pankin also noted that all the sanctions are illegitimate and were introduced under shaky facts.
Relations between the Russian Federation and Western countries worsened due to the situation in Donbass and around Crimea, which was reunited with Russia after a referendum on the peninsula. The West, accusing the Russian Federation of interference, imposed sanctions against it. Moscow rejected all accusations, retaliated, embarked on a course of import substitution, and more than once declared that talking to it in the language of sanctions was counterproductive.
