Russian Federation Council Speaker, Valentina Matvienko, said on Friday, February 25, that Moscow has prepared retaliatory sanctions against Western countries. They are not obligatory mirror ones but target sensitive points of the West.
“As for retaliatory sanctions, they are also prepared. They will not mirror the [West’s] sanctions against Russia, but we are well aware of the weak points of the West, and we have also prepared a whole package of sanctions, which will be applied against those states who have sanctioned Russia,” she warned.
Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, for his part, pointed out that when considering retaliation against the Western sanctions, Russia will proceed from its own interests and will apply the principle of reciprocity.
The statement came after Joe Biden announced new sanctions against Russia, describing them as measures that would “impose severe costs on the Russian economy.” He noted that the sanctions aim to damage Russia’s tech sector, including cutting off more than half its tech imports, as well as its space, aerospace, and military industries but not cutting Russia off from the SWIFT international payment system.
As reminded, Vladimir Putin stressed that Russia was left with no alternative after Donbass being shelled for more than a week and the 2015 Minsk peace agreements were abandoned. Thus, despite the sanctions threat, Russia stood up for the defence of Donbass people.
The Russian President stressed that the goal of the special operation is the “demilitarisation and denazification” of Ukraine. Also, Russia’s Defence Ministry underscored that the Russian military would not target civilians and focus on destroying Ukraine’s military infrastructure.
Ru-Main, 25.02.2022
Source: Sputnik
