MOSCOW, July 28 (RIA Novosti) - The West is creating a geopolitical project in Ukraine at the sake of Russia’s interests, and sanctions against Russia are creating the conditions for its fulfillment, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
“Maybe we should look at the issue of sanctions from the other side: Some sort of geopolitical project was formed that started on Maidan at the end of last year under a completely fabricated pretext when the then-president was refused the right to take extra time to study the consequences of an association agreement with the European Union,” Lavrov said during a briefing.
“During its development, it became clear that this is really a geopolitical project with the intent of taking over the Ukrainian geopolitical space, and doing so at the expense of Russia’s interests, at the expense of the Russian and Russian-speaking population of Ukraine itself,” Lavrov said.
The United States and the European Union imposed targeted sanctions against a number of Russian officials and companies as a response to Crimea’s reunification with Russia in March. The restrictive measures targeted high-ranking Russian officials as the West accused Moscow of allegedly violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
In a more recent incident on July 16, Washington introduced a so-called Sectoral Sanctions Identification List that specifically targeted the Russian economy’s defense, energy and banking sectors. Following the United States’ lead, the EU Foreign Affairs Council requested the European Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS) on July 22 to finalize their “preparatory work on possible targeted measures and to present proposals for taking action, including on access to capital markets, defense, dual use goods and sensitive technologies, including in the energy sector.”
Moscow has repeatedly called the language of sanctions counterproductive and said these measures would have a boomerang effect on the economies of the sanctioned, especially the EU member state economies.
On July 24, Russia stated at the General Council meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that Western sanctions against Russian entities violated the organization’s key principles and a number of WTO members supported this position.
