SOCHI, October 23. /TASS/. It is impossible to isolate Russia, and sanctions imposed on the country are attempts to pressure it, Russian presidential administration chief Sergey Ivanov said Thursday.
“Isolating Russia is just impossible. And the world does not plan to isolate us,” Ivanov told journalists. “Not the entire world is isolating us and imposing the so-called sanctions. I am not saying ‘so-called’ by chance. Because real sanctions are only imposed by the UN Security Council.”
“All the rest is pressure attempts and not sanctions,” he said. “But Russia, in its thousand-year history, has lived through other [difficult] things too, so it’s insignificant.”
Russian officials and companies came under the first batch of Western sanctions, including visa bans and asset freezes, after Russia incorporated Crimea in mid-March after a coup in Ukraine in February.
The West announced new sectoral penalties against Russia in late July over Moscow’s position on Ukrainian events, in particular, what the West claimed was Moscow’s alleged involvement in mass protests in Ukraine’s war-torn southeast.
In response, Russia imposed on August 6 a one-year ban on imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the EU, the United States and Norway.
Russia has repeatedly dismissed Western allegations that it could in any way be involved in hostilities in the southeast of Ukraine.