BERLIN, June 24. /ITAR-TASS/. Western sanctions against Russia will deliver no-one a desired result, the chief executive of Rosneft, Russia's top oil producer, said in newspaper comments on Tuesday.
“Sanctions will not help anybody,” Igor Sechin was quoted as saying by Germany's largest business and finance daily, Handelsblatt. “There will only be additional risks. The number of those (indirectly) concerned will grow.”
All parties should “remain pragmatic”, he said, adding that more than 6,000 Russian companies cooperated with Germany.
Sechin's comments reflect worries among German industry giants about the effects of sanctions on the domestic economy and wider afield in Europe. Some 300,000 jobs in Germany are reckoned at risk from economic sanctions against Russia, a possibility not excluded by the federal government.
Leading names such as chemical giant BASF, engineering's Siemens, Volkswagen, Adidas and Deutsche Bank have all made their opposition to broader economic sanctions against Russia known in recent weeks, both in public and in private.
German experts warn that economic sanctions will have a negative impact on the German economy, which will in turn determine to a large extent the welfare of the eurozone. Trade turnover between Russia and Germany reached €76 billion last year.