Russia has not yet felt the effect of the West's sanctions, but if they are applied to whole sectors of the Russian economy, European businesses will be harmed equally, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.
“The effect of the sanctions on the Russian economy is absolutely
minimal at the moment, if there is any at all,” Medvedev said in an
interview shown on a May 24 analytical program hosted by Sergei
Brilyov.
“We regularly hear threats that they’ll impose sectoral sanctions on
some of our industries, including engineering and including power
generation,” he said.
“But we understand what this means. This means that a number of
Russia’s export opportunities will be endangered,” Medvedev said. “We
have a huge amount of investments coming to the Russian economy from
European Union countries and companies, and therefore these relations
will be harmed first of all,” he said.
The Russian prime minister is confident that nobody is interested in
this, because “it is obvious that such sanctions deal a blow to business
interests, primarily European ones,” he said.
Medvedev said he was astounded by “statements made from high forums
by people I know and my counterparts that it’s okay that their business
would be harmed but they would display solidarity.”
“This reminds me very much of the Socialist camp times, when we
displayed some solidarity. As a result, our economic relations were
harmed, and we had either to pay someone or, on the contrary, to stop
cooperation. Now a number of Western countries are talking about
solidarity. If this is solidarity against their own business, well, go
ahead. Of course, it won’t be sweeter for us, too,” he said.
