Russian upper house speaker: Anti-Russian sanctions policy has failed

BEIJING, September 9. /TASS/. Western countries’ policy to impose sanctions against Russia has not justified itself and completely failed, Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper house of Russia’s parliament, told journalists Friday.

Matviyenko, on a working visit to Beijing, said: "We have already adapted to these new realia and new conditions so much that we actually have no reaction to them."

"The policy of sanctions has not justified itself, it has completely failed. We are only turning these sanctions in our favor and actually are not reacting any longer to such attempts of pressure upon our country," the Federation Council speaker said.

She said the pressure is unacceptable and illegal, and added that sanctions, as the experience of other states shows, never in history reached their goals however strong they could be.

"They will certainly not give any result regarding Russia," Matviyenko said, adding that the critical mass of opponents of anti-Russian sanctions in Europe and worldwide is growing.

"The time will come when these sanctions will certainly be canceled and recognized as a failed foreign policy and failed attempts to render pressure upon this or that sovereign country," she said.

For incorporation of Crimea after a coup in Ukraine in early 2014, 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.

A system of import substitution had to be introduced in Russia in connection with imposition of Western sanctions on Russia for developments in Ukraine and Moscow’s countersanctions.