MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. Anti-Russia sanctions that have been imposed by Western countries, will not disappear in the long term as the West intends to ruin the world economy for teaching Moscow a lesson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"We are perfectly aware of the fact that sanctions that have been imposed against us, will not disappear neither in the foreseeable future nor in the long term, with their authors stating that as well," he said at a roundtable on ways to resolve the Ukrainian issue. "But honestly speaking <…> we won’t need it, and not because we choose isolationism, autarky, not at all, but simply because the West has decided to ruin the world economy for teaching Russia a lesson, for preventing Russia from playing a role on the international stage," the minister added.
In this respect Lavrov said that "over the past year and a half, according to very conservative estimates," European business lost at least 250 bln euro due to Western sanctions against Russia. "Sanctions against Russia aggravated the crisis developments of the global economy," he noted.