MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. Russia has vowed to strike back at the European Union with tit-for-tat restrictions in response to the EU summit’s decision to extend economic sanctions against Moscow for six months, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.
"We did not introduce the initial sanctions and it is not for us to raise this issue. You know that we have a whole set of countermeasures. They will also be extended tit-for-tat," he said.
The Kremlin spokesman stressed that Moscow still considers the sanctions imposed by the EU to be illegal from the point of view of international law. "The main thing is that the sanctions have not led to initiators of these sanctions achieving their goals," Peskov added.
At the same time, Peskov recalled that Russia "perfectly adapted to the existing economic conditions" and learned how to benefit from them "in terms of developing its own production, import substitution, and so on".
In 2014, the European Union imposed sanctions against Russia in connection with the events around Ukraine and Crimea. The restrictive measures have been expanded and extended several times. Negotiations on a visa-free regime and a new basic agreement on cooperation were suspended, a ban was introduced on entry to EU countries for officials from Russia, and their assets were frozen. Restrictive measures of a commercial, financial, and military nature were also introduced. In response, Russia imposed a ban on imports from the EU countries of a number of food products.
On December 16, the leaders of the 27 EU countries unanimously decided to extend economic sanctions against Russia.