US sanctions help Russia?

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, commenting on the new US sanctions against Russian citizens and companies, stressed that they are not only harmless to Russian industry but also help its development and growth.

"Our companies continue to work, the indicators are improving, and in 2017, by the end of the year, we have achieved very good figures. The sanctions create the additional opportunities for the development of domestic industry," the minister said, noting that the sanction pressure on the country causes regret.

"Such methods and actions are rudimental. They do not create the basis for market development, competition, contradict the WTO rules, contribute to creating conditions for the promotion of goods and services of those countries’ companies that impose sanctions. Although in practice, these companies suffer losses, "Alexander Novak noted, concluding that the sanctions do not reach the economic goals, and therefore, they are only the geopolitics instruments.

”The sanctions now imposed on the extraction of the hard-to-recover reserves, offshore mining and other areas, that is, they duplicated those sanctions that had been imposed previously. Our companies have to assess this situation, but they have been working in these conditions since 2014, and we see that the sanctions do not affect the activities of our companies, but only create additional problems for the development of the mutual relations between our countries and companies, " the head of the Ministry of Energy said, demanding from the US explanations for the sanctions  imposed against his deputy Andrey Tcherezov and director of one of the  Ministry’s departments Evgeniy Grabchak.

"We consider this to be absolutely illegal, no arguments were presented to us. We will wait for some explanation on this matter. People work, fulfill their functions, state functions, continue to work, and such prohibitions create the additional stress, " he concluded.