Russian cabinet to slap reciprocal sanctions on Ukraine: report
The Russian government is developing a bill introducing reciprocal containment measures against several hundred Ukrainian companies and citizens, a Russian business oriented daily reports.
In its Thursday issue, the Kommersant daily quoted unnamed sources in the Russian government as saying that the new sanctions could be introduced against Ukrainian politicians, civil servants and business people. In particular the containment measures could take the form of a freeze of their assets on Russian territory, sources said.
In addition, Russia could impose some sanctions on Ukrainian imports. The draft detailing the new trade restrictions is being developed jointly by the Finance Ministry, Economy Ministry and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The first deadline before which the ministries must present their proposal is set at August 1, the sources revealed.
They also said that the mentioned reciprocal measures have been in development since 2014 as a mirror reply to Ukraine’s unfriendly actions, but the main goal of the future Russian steps is to minimize the negative effect of foreign sanctions on Russian economy.
At the same time, Kommersant’s sources did not exclude the possibility that new Russian sanctions would be more of a symbolic nature as they could concern, for example, Ukrainian fertilizers which Russia only imports in negligible quantities.
In early June this year Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the bill that allows the government to apply various restrictive measures on nations that use economic sanctions against Russia or make other attempts to impede its development. This was done in reply to the latest round of sanctions introduced by the US and its allies soon after the US Treasury Department released another list of Russian citizens and corporations that fall under new sanctions imposed over Russia’s foreign policy.
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