MOSCOW, July 30. /TASS/. A top parliamentarian from the upper house of the Russian parliament sees support for EU’s anti-Russian sanctions by seven other European countries as a reaction to success of recent summits of the BRICS group of nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that have shown Russia is not isolated.
"In my opinion, yesterday’s events came as a reaction of our foes to clearly bogging anti-Russian sanctions of the 2014 pattern and to a great extent to the success of Ufa summits of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and SCO that demonstrated to the whole world that Russia is not isolated internationally," Konstantin Kosachev said.
He said these summits in the capital of Russia’s Volga River republic of Bashkiria also showed "the power of global integration processes with its participation that are gaining momentum and substance," the chairman of the Federation Council’s international affairs committee wrote in his blog on the upper house’s official website.
Seven European countries — Montenegro, Albania, Iceland, Norway, Lichtenstein, Ukraine and Georgia have reaffirmed to the EU Council they prolonged the participation in the EU’s sanctions against Crimea and Sevastopol till June 23, 2016, as follows from a statement by the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Federica Mogherini, published on the EU Council’s website on July 28.
Six of these countries except Georgia also joined the EU’s decision of July 22 to prolong economic sanctions against Russia till January 31, 2016.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization brings together Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have observer status, while Belarus, Turkey and Sri Lanka are "dialogue partners".