ST. PETERSBURG, July 4. /TASS/. Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) has lost no foreign clients over sanctions, USC Military-Technical Cooperation Department Director Alexey Dikiy said Saturday at the International Maritime Defense Show (IMDS) in St. Petersburg.
"We have retained all clients we had before the sanctions, no one’s left us. It seems to me sanctions make no difference here," Dikiy told TASS.
"We have mainly oriented ourselves in military products to our traditional partners - India, first of all, of course, Vietnam, Southeast Asia countries, a few states of the Mediterranean region. We have retained all these customers," he said.
Besides, Dikiy recalled, the USC’s traditional clients are former Soviet republics. "They have certainly remained too," he said.
For incorporation of Crimea after last year’s coup in Ukraine, Russia came under sanctions on the part of the United States and many European countries. The restrictive measures were soon intensified following Western and Ukrainian claims that Russia supported militias in self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine’s southeast and was involved in destabilization of Ukraine.
As countermeasures, Russia imposed on August 6, 2014 a one-year ban on imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United States and Norway.
The Russian authorities have repeatedly denied accusations of "annexing" Crimea, because Crimea reunified with Russia voluntarily after a referendum, as well as claims that Moscow could in any way be involved in hostilities in Ukraine’s east.