MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS/. Western sanctions against Russia over its stance on the Ukraine crisis may last until 2017, Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukayev said in an interview with Russian View magazine on Wednesday.

Russia’s previous macro-economic forecast prepared in autumn was based on the assumption that the sanctions would be lifted in 2015, Ulyukayev said.

The European Council made a decision on sanctions against Russia for a term of twelve months and therefore Russia’s Economic Development Ministry presumed in its previous forecast that this decision may not be extended, Ulyukayev said.

“But hypothetically this decision may be extended. And now we must presume in our calculations that the sanctions regime will last in 2015, 2016 and 2017. But this is already the problem of medium-term planning,” Ulyukayev said.

Russia’s Economic Development Ministry unveiled last week its updated macroeconomic forecast based on the assumption that western sanctions against Russia would last throughout 2015. The previous forecast presumed that the sanctions would be lifted in mid-2015.

Owing to the western sanctions, a fall in world oil prices and investor uncertainty, Russia’s Economic Development Ministry expects the country’s GDP to fall by 0.8% in 2015 as compared with its growth by 1.2% in the previous forecast.

At the same time, the ministry raised the GDP growth forecast for 2014 to 0.6% from 0.5% in the previous forecast.