Eurasia Press & News
Russia will retaliate against a new round of Western sanctions over Ukraine and may block flights through its airspace, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview published today.
Mr Medvedev also suggested that Western sanctions would not make the Kremlin change its course, adding that Russians, like the Chinese, would simply pull together in the face of new punitive measures.
The European Union is expected today to consider new sanctions against Russia, in a further blow to the country’s ailing economy already teetering on the brink of recession.
Brussels said it was ready to review the need for new sanctions if a truce agreed between Kremlin-backed rebels and Kiev forces holds in eastern Ukraine.
“I was hoping that our partners would be smarter. Alas ~ ” Mr Medvedev, who served a four-year stint as president before ceding the Kremlin to his mentor Vladimir Putin in 2012, told the liberal business daily Vedomosti.
“If there are sanctions related to energy, further limits for our financial sector we will have to respond asymmetrically,” he said, adding that Russia may target flights over Russia.
“We proceed from the fact that we have friendly relations with our partners and that is why the sky over Russia is open for flights. But if they put limits on us we will have to respond.”
