Russia said on Tuesday it would have no difficulty in circumventing the EU’s latest package of economic sanctions, which target its diamond exports in particular.
“We will simply divert sales to other regions. I’m sure this will not benefit those who introduced these sanctions,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said during a visit to Beijing, according to state news agency TASS.
The new sanctions package adopted by the European Council on Monday bans the import of non-industrial diamonds of Russian origin, imposes additional import and export bans on Russia, and seeks to combat sanctions evasion and close loopholes.
Russia is by far the world’s largest diamond producer by volume. Russian diamond miner Alrosa, which is majority-owned by the state and the Yakutia region, declined to comment on the sanctions.
But the Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russia had prepared for the latest European Union sanctions, imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation”.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it would expand the list of representatives of European institutions and EU member states banned from entering Russia in response to the new ‘unfriendly, illegitimate actions’.
On Monday, Russia’s diplomatic mission to the European Union said that attempts to isolate the Russian economy had failed miserably and that the latest sanctions included ‘illegitimate restrictions, political blackmail, neo-colonial approaches’.
