MOSCOW, October 28. /TASS/. Speaker of the upper house of Russian parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, believes that the impact of Western sanctions against her is absolute zero.
“As for the practical impact of the measures, it’s an absolute zero in my case,” she said in an exclusive interview with TASS.
“The sanctions imply a ban on entry and the arrest of assets and properties located in the US or EU member-states,” Matviyenko said. “But since the politicians are watched so excruciatingly and information on them is gathered sliver by sliver so that they could be defamed or discredited in one way or another, I think the Western quarters knew perfectly well that I didn’t have either bank accounts or real estate outside of Russia.”
“Thanks God we passed an appropriate decision earlier and the government officials, senators and deputies who had anything liable to sanctions in foreign countries dispensed their possessions,” she said.
When a reporter asked her if she had ever any properties abroad, Matviyenko said, “Never. Neither properties nor bank assets.”
“More than that, I never had any willingness to purchase anything there,” she went on. “In a word, the sanctions against me are nothing more than a certain sign, a black spot.”
“The only really saddening fact about the situation is that these restrictions make it difficult to make our viewpoints known to others,” Matviyenko said. “The worst situation of all is when someone interrupts dialogue. It’s true that we’re looking at many things from totally different angles but still it’s important to discuss acute problems.”
She described the sanctions as an attempt to corner Russia. “What happened was similar to a barken from Washington, like we’ll put you on a naughty step if you don’t behave,” Matviyenko said. “But Russia is not a country where politicians freeze with fear and get tamed.”
“The US Administration and the milieus in Brussels that support it are displeased with it and they create extra complexities for our job,” she said. “Yet we’re coping with it anyway."