SIRIUS /Federal Territory/, June 7. /TASS/. Western countries' hopes that sanctions would harm Russia's economy and force Moscow to make concessions did not come true, CIS Secretary General Sergey Lebedev told TASS.

"The expectations of our opponents that they would be able to prompt us to make any concessions, go along with them, did not come true. We know there were hopes … in the West that the Russian economy would be destroyed, and Russia would plummet to the bottom. Nothing of the sort happened," he said.

Lebedev emphasized that the sanctions had little effect on the Russian or Belarussian economies. According to him, such pressure in recent years has only encouraged CIS countries to work together to overcome the negative consequences of cutting economic connections with the West.