MOSCOW, August 3. /TASS/. The new draft law on sanctions against Russia introduced by the US Senate may be adopted, but it will hurt bilateral relations between the countries, not Moscow’s policy, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Foreign Affairs Konstantin Kosachyov said in a conversation with TASS on Friday.
The initiative proposed by a group of American senators "in normal, regular conditions" would not have any prospects, "as there are no grounds for sanctions." "However, the anti-Russian sentiments in the Congress have hit a fever pitch now, and the American politicians will be losing their common sense ahead of the November 6 [midterm parliamentary] election out of the current concerns of the election campaign. So, the specified notorious project may be brought to light sooner or later as a law," the committee head stated.
"If it is adopted, the consequences for the Russian-American relations, including their parliamentary component, will be rather negative," Kosachyov went on. He highlighted that the issue concerns negative effect "only for bilateral relations, and not from the perspective of the influence over the Russian domestic and foreign policy." "In this regard the US sanctions were void of any real prospects all along and will be void of them, no matter how much odiousness and aggression is added to them," the senator summed up.
The Russian Civic Committee also linked the introduction of the draft law on sanctions with the upcoming midterm election to the Congress, during which one-third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives will be re-elected. Head of the Civic Chamber Commission for Public Diplomacy, Humanitarian Cooperation and the Preservation of Traditional Values Yelena Sutormina said in a conversation with TASS that the American politicians are trying to justify the unfulfilled promises to tackle domestic problems, and for this purpose "an external enemy should be found."
"There is also animosity, as the [previous] restrictive measures failed to deal a devastating blow on our country’s economy," she concluded.