Russian countermeasures were a reciprocal and honest response to the EU sanctions, because unfair competition from EU producers was unacceptable in light of the sanctions Brussels introduced, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, Sputnik reports.
"We imposed sanctions as a countermeasure over one simple thing. The European sanctions limit the ability of our banks to get loans to finance agriculture, which would mean agricultural producers from the European Union would have had an advantage and maintained an unfairly competitive position in the Russian market," Lavrov told the Austrian magazine Profil in an interview.
When asked under what conditions would Russia cancel its restrictive measures, the minister said that the question was not for him to answer.
"We did not initiate the sanctions, so it is not for us to lift them," Lavrov noted.
