Head of Russia’s Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Aleksandr Shokhin, believes that the latest expansion of the United States’ sanction list is not a new tide of sanctions.
“Sanctions are being expanded in a domino-like way. The ultimate aim is to hit the companies that are being used to sidestep them (sanctions),” Shokhin told TASS in an interview.
“New names on the list are not some basic entities, but their sister companies and, respectively, the individuals in charge of them. That had been well anticipated in advance,” he said. “Apparently, the chain will be getting longer until they develop some landmark changes in relations among the main participants in the process: among the Normandy quartet and the United States. The introduction of this sort of sanctions will go on, step by step. There is nothing new about that.”
The main thing is to avoid responding to such measures as another wave of sanctions. A new wave would spell transition from sanction lists to the expansion of sectoral sanctions, and from sectoral sanctions to country sanctions.
“There is nothing like that on the horizon. No counter-sanctions are required here,” Shokhin said.
He also believes that some enterprises may feel the risk of being put on the sanction list, if by virtue of their business they are linked with the companies already there. But there is nothing new about that, though.
The United States for the first time introduced sanctions against a number of Russian officials on March 17, 2014. The sanction list has been expanded several times since then.
On July 30, Washington prolonged the list of individuals and legal entities subject to unilateral economic sanctions, imposed earlier on the basis of four presidential executive orders over the events in Ukraine.
The restrictive measures have now been spread to another eleven individuals and 15 legal entities, mostly Russian. Also, the US Department of the Treasury explained that the measures declared against Russia’s Vneshekonombank and the company Rosneft also applied to their 35 affiliates.
