GORKI, January 27. /TASS/. Moscow is not afraid of any additional Western restrictions, including the new ‘sanctions from hell’ announced by some American politicians, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Russian media outlets, including TASS.
"We are really not scared of those sanctions. This is neither a figure of speech nor chest-thumping, it is simply a statement of what is actually happening," he maintained.
"We are currently facing sanctions ‘from hell’. Well, I don’t know what it is, or what it will consist of. ‘Sanctions from hell’, they say. On the other hand, I remember well the words of my colleague Barack Obama who in 2015, I think, after our deadlock due to well-known reasons, with sanctions imposed, delivered a phrase that I remember. He said that the Russian economy was "in tatters." Well, what can [we] say, where is Obama now? Retired, as they say, while our economy is thriving and moving forward," Medvedev emphasized.
The country’s economic development has its problems, "plenty of them," the politician added. However, "nothing overly horrific" has happened to it [the economy], in some areas it has indeed become even better," he noted, mentioning agriculture, where the West’s sanctions have spurred development in particular, as an example. "Let them use [sanctions] as domestic rhetoric, for satisfying their voters or for their political establishment, overall," Medvedev stated.
Sanctions is a permanent thing for Russia, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council stressed. "The thing is that - and I have said it before that those sanctions are no stranger to us. And I do not even mean the most recent period, but the Soviet era, against the USSR. I am not even talking about the reasons now, [or] the background, nor am I describing the Soviet Union itself, this is a matter of taste and attitude. But against the Soviet Union, which is our homeland, sanctions have been introduced at least ten times on various reasons. By the way, including against the well-known Urengoy - Pomary - Uzhgorod gas pipeline, and so on. Meaning this all is not new," he said.