Russia Reacts to New U.S. Sanctions: Insanity and Terrorism

The U.S. Treasury Department released a new wave of anti-Russia sanctions on Friday targeting 24 individuals and 14 entities linked to the Kremlin, in response to "malign" Russian actions that include alleged election meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

The action froze the U.S. assets of oligarchs and government officials, such as aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska and lawmaker Suleiman Kerimov, as well as state-linked companies.

“This is complete lawlessness and impotence, insanity, that we’re seeing from the side of the Americans, [it's] because all of their projects on the international arena are failing, one after the other.”

“This is a path to nowhere. You can’t intimidate Russia with this, let alone break it.”

“I look at the new list of Russian officials and oligarchs put under U.S. sanctions. I remember how they drank champagne for Trump’s victory in the election. I laugh.”

“It looks like the Americans will be using terrorist methods […] In other words, they will ‘kill hostages.’ They’re going to select people from the Kremlin list as ‘hostages,’ so that the others see that the same will happen to them if they don’t behave correctly.”

“All the loud statements and accusations are just a pretext to squeeze Russia out of the international arms market. [It’s] flagrant and pragmatic. This is unfair competition in its purest form.”

“As for Russian companies under sanctions, we will support them even more.”

“We will not accept [banks and consumers avoiding working with sanctioned companies], we will severely punish this.”

“The new U.S. sanctions are very painful for specific people in Putin’s inner circle. Though we don’t really have anything to be happy about, we’re all they’re hostages. (the GAZ carmaker, for example, was hit by the sanctions”

“U.S. attempts to dictate its will on our country and talk about [Russia's] need to pay for independent and sovereign policy decisions are doomed to a political and diplomatic fiasco.”

"Abramovich and Usmanov are not [on the list] for example."