Senator Pushkov: new US sanctions against Russia may lead to the rupture of diplomatic relations
Alexey Pushkov. Photo: Nina Zotina / RIA Novosti
Russian Senator Alexei Pushkov in an interview with the publication “Ukraine.ru” explained why the West only threatens Russia, but at the same time refuses to impose preventive sanctions. According to him, there are two reasons for the absence of new anti-Russian economic restrictions.
“Firstly, sanctions make sense only when they are a threat. When they are already accepted, they are no longer a threat to the second party, they become a reality. If you are already under sanctions, what is the point for you to restrain yourself? You can already afford any actions. The second motive is that if the United States uses sanctions such as disconnecting Russia from SWIFT, stopping operations with Russian government debt and taking measures against dollar transactions of Russian banks, they will lose any other levers of influence on the Russian Federation and its policy,” Pushkov said.
In addition, he stressed that the introduction of such sanctions preemptively is only the most extreme measure, since in this case the United States actually declares a total economic and political war on Russia. This will worsen the already rather bad relations between the states and may even lead to the rupture of diplomatic relations, he said. Therefore, everyone understands that such steps will not be taken, the senator concluded.
Earlier, Pavel Sharikov, head of the Center for Applied Research of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences and an expert of the Valdai Club, said that recently the ideological and philosophical confrontation between Russia and the United States has escalated, which resulted in the last round of escalation.
