MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/. Threats by the European Union (EU) to punish third countries for failing to comply with its anti-Russian sanctions will only increase the rejection of Western policies by the rest of the world, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated on Tuesday.
"There is no doubt whatsoever that the EU's threats, as part of its package adopted recently, to punish third countries for their failure to comply with anti-Russian restrictions, will only strengthen the world's rejection of the neocolonial, in fact, the dictatorial policies of the West," the ministry quoted Zakharova as saying in a statement.
On February 25, the European Union imposed the 10th package of sanctions on Russia, placing restrictions on Russian Human Rights Council Valery Fadeyev, surgeon Leonid Roshal, head of the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation Yevgeny Primakov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Moscow Region Vyacheslav Dukhin and Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova and 82 other Russians.
Moskalkova told TASS earlier that EU sanctions had a deleterious effect on human rights diplomacy, which is meant to help people.