Kremlin Warns Of Response To Latest US Sanctions, Says “Almost All Communication With US Is Frozen”
In response to the latest imposition of US sanctions on Russia, the Kremlin said on Wednesday that the new sanctions would further damage relations between the two countries and that Moscow would respond with its own measures. “We regret that Washington is continuing on this destructive path,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
As a reminder, on Tuesday the United States widened sanctions against Russian businessmen and companies adopted after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in Ukraine.
“We believe this damages bilateral relations … Russia will take commensurate measures.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
Then again, it is difficult to see how sanctions between the two administration could be any more “damaged”: also on Wednesday, the Kremlin said it did not expect the incoming U.S. administration to reject NATO enlargement overnight and that almost all communications channels between Russia and the United States were frozen, the RIA news agency reported.
“Almost every level of dialogue with the United States is frozen. We don’t communicate with one another, or (if we do) we do so minimally,” Peskov said.
Additionally, RIA said that according to Peskov “he did not know whether President Vladimir Putin would seek re-election in 2018.”
“Everyone’s heads are aching because of work and with projects and nobody is thinking or talking about elections,” Peskov said.
Then again, the sanctions may soon be history. According to a Bloomberg report, the U.S. will start easing its penalties, imposed over the showdown in Ukraine in 2014, during the next 12 months, according to 55 percent of respondents in a Bloomberg survey, up from 10 percent in an October poll. Without the restrictions, Russia’s economic growth would get a boost equivalent to 0.2 percentage point of gross domestic product next year and 0.5 percentage point in 2018, according to the median estimates in the poll.
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