MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. Ukraine’s sanctions against Russian payment systems do not influence the national economy and their impact on Russia’s banking sector will be insignificant, former Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin said.
"This [Ukraine’s sanctions concerning Russian payment systems - TASS] won’t affect our financial sustainability. As for the banking sector - those affiliates and division we have in our country - of course it will slightly affect them. But I reiterate that this will concern the operations our divisions are conducting in that country [in Ukraine]. As far as I know now the number of such transactions is much smaller than before," Kudrin said.
Earlier the press service of Ukraine’s President Pyotr Poroshenko published an updated list of Russian physical and legal entities that came under sanctions of Kiev.
The list of legal entities includes payment systems Golden Crown, Colibri (Sberbank), Unistream, Blizko, Anelik, Leader international money transfers.
According to the statistics of the National Bank of Ukraine, in 2015, Russia remained the leader in terms of money flow to the country despite the worsening of Ukrainian-Russian relations. The volume of transfers dropped by 42.5% in comparison with 2014 but still exceeded $1.2 bln (29.2 % of all money transfers from abroad). According to the National Bank of Ukraine, in 2015 Ukrainians received $2.5 bln from abroad which is 34.9% less than in 2014.
Anti-Russia sanctions won't be lifted soon
The new factors spurring geopolitical tensions between Russia and western countries have reduced the possibility of anti-Russia sanctions being lifted soon.
"The new upsurge of (geopolitical) tensions surely makes the (anti-Russia) sanctions lifting more complicated for the nearest future but this does not mean sanctions cannot be reduced next year," he said when asked about the potential lifting of western sanctions against Russia.
A number of western countries, inspired by the United States, subjected Russian officials and companies to the first batch of sanctions, including visa bans and asset freezes, after Russia incorporated Crimea in mid-March 2014 after a coup in Ukraine in February that year. New, sectoral, penalties against Russia were announced in late July 2014 over Moscow’s position on Ukrainian events, in particular, what the West claimed was Russia’s alleged involvement in hostilities in Ukraine’s embattled south-east. Russia responded with imposing on August 6, 2014 a ban on imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the EU, the United States and Norway.