Moscow: Russia’s retaliatory measures against countries which imposed sanctions upon it over Ukraine will not necessarily be exactly similar, but rather target those sectors which Moscow knows to be vulnerable, Russian upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Friday.
“With regard to counter-sanctions, they are also being prepared. They will not mirror the sanctions against Russia, but we know the West’s vulnerable spots and we too have prepared a entire package, an entire series of sanctions in order to impose them on those countries which have imposed sanctions against Russia,” Matviyenko told journalists.
Among countries that have so far sanctioned Russia over Ukraine are the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, as well as the European Union.
Several EU countries, such as Latvia and Lithuania, have suspended the issuance of visas to Russian nationals, while Germany terminated the certification process of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
On Thursday morning, Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine after the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk requested assistance to defend themselves from attacks by the Ukrainian troops.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the operation was targeting the military infrastructure of Ukraine, while the civilian population was not in danger. Moscow says it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.
