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MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/. Chairman of Federation Council’s Committee of Defense and Security Viktor Ozerov has described US sanctions against Russia’s defense industry as "a covert form of competition to weaken these companies."
"This is a covert form of competition. Our weapons and military equipment are very popular on international arms market, and the US wants to weaken the economy of those companies," Ozerov told TASS.
He added that Washington has repeatedly tried to accuse Moscow of violating agreements made in the framework of sanctions imposed by the United Nations. "However, they have so far failed to provide fundamental evidence of these violations," Ozerov noted.
Sanctions will not go unnoticed due to close ties on the international market, he said. "Rosoboronexport company [Russia’s arms exporter], for instance, has repeatedly been included in such sanctions lists, but it did not hamper it from developing production for Russia’s Defense Ministry and competing with Americans on the international market," Ozerov stressed.
"I think that the more sanctions they impose, the more they stimulate our companies to work along the line of import substitution and not allow them to relax in terms of searching for own materials and equipment for manufacturing arms and military equipment," he concluded.
US expands sanctions against Russia
On September 2, the US Department of Commerce added new companies from Russia and other countries to its list of sanctions prompted by the conflict in Ukraine.
According to a rule notice in the Federal Register, "twenty-nine persons under thirty-three entries" have been included in the "Entity List".
The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) "is taking this action to ensure the efficacy of existing sanctions on the Russian Federation", the notice said.
The thirty-three entries to the Entity List are located in Crimea, Cyprus, Finland, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. There are thirty-three entries for the twenty-nine persons because two persons are listed in two locations and one person is listed in three locations, resulting in four additional entries, according to the notice.