WASHINGTON, April 30. /TASS/. The United States is not trying to destroy the Russian economy, National Security Council Senior Director for International Economics Rory MacFarquhar told a seminar on the Ukrainian economy in Washington on Wednesday.
Despite the significant decline in the trade turnover between Russia and Ukraine, "these two economies are still … linked so if the Russian economy collapsed, that would not be good for Ukraine," he said.
MacFarquhar, who was formerly a senior economist at Goldman Sachs in Moscow, also said: "We have not been aiming to destroy the Russian economy. That’s not the goal of our policy."
Speaking on the US sanctions and Russia’s retaliatory measures, MacFarquhar said it is very difficult to assess them first of all amid the economic consequences of the plunging oil prices. He said however, Moscow’s counter-sanctions have badly damaged the Russian economy.
During the question and answer session in mid-April, known as the Direct Line, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was certain that Russia should use sanctions in order to achieve "new development frontiers." Earlier, the Russian agrarian market "was occupied for [domestic] producers, now it has been cleared," he said.