MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In an interview with Rossiya-24 television channel, Sergei Ryabkov said:
"Sanctions and attempts to break us economically are doomed to fail. We have spent a year dealing with a new reality. It helps us, I am sure, to move towards import substitution, we are looking for alternative ways to cooperate."
Starting from the spring of 2014, the United States, the European Union and their allies imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia over Moscow’s alleged role in the escalation of the internal Ukrainian crisis. Russian officials repeatedly referred to sanction language as counterproductive.
Moscow launched a large-scale import substitution program to replace Western imports and stepped up its cooperation with the BRICS and Latin American countries.
On Tuesday, Russian president Vladimir Putin noted that the change in the ruble’s exchange rate gives Russian business the opportunity to take on new niches, including at the international level.
