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June 20th, 2015 
David Schulberg 
The Russian Foreign Ministry has slammed the EU’s “pushy sanctions strategy” as “political blackmail,” and said it is “absolutely hopeless” as it won’t make Russia give up its “national interests and principled position.”
Coming in response to
the EU’s extension of sanctions over what Brussels called
“the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol,” the
Russian statement said “it was time” to accept that
those territories are an “integral part of the Russian
Federation” and that the situation “can’t be changed by
methods of economic and political blackmail.”
Sanctions against Russia are “absolutely hopeless,” the
ministry said, adding that “it is a mistake to expect that [the
sanctions strategy] will make us sacrifice national interests and
[our] principled position on key issues.”
As the prolonged restrictions target Crimea and the city of
Sevastopol, the Foreign Ministry sees the sanctions as
unacceptable “discrimination” against people in Crimea “on a
political and territorial basis.”
Recalling “historical examples,” the ministry condemned
the move as “a collective punishment” of “the
residents of the [Crimean] peninsula who made a free choice”
for reunification with Russia.
“It was hard to imagine that Europe would face this in the
21st century,” the Foreign Ministry’s statement said.
READ MORE: EU prolongs economic sanctions against
Crimea till June 2016
On Friday, the EU extended economic sanctions against Crimea
until June 23, 2016, and said it still doesn’t recognize Crimea’s
reunification with Russia, calling it an “illegal
annexation.”
The restrictions include a ban on imports from Crimea or
Sevastopol into the EU, investment and tourism services, as well
as the export of certain products and technology to Crimean
companies.
The EU sanctions against Russia were imposed over the Ukrainian
crisis. They targeted access to foreign loans and the oil and gas
industry. Moscow responded with countersanctions that hit
European food producers. However, the toll the conflict is taking
on the EU economy is higher than Brussels initially anticipated.
READ MORE: Anti-Russian sanctions hurt Europe harder than
expected; threaten 2.5mn jobs – study
According to a new study by the Austrian Institute of Economic
Research (WIFO), the EU sanctions and Moscow’s retaliation could
cost Europeans 100 billion euros in economic development and
jeopardize up to 2 1/2 million jobs.
Crimea joined Russia in March 2014 following a referendum where
96 percent of people voted in favor of reunification. The
decision to hold a referendum was sparked by the Maidan protests
and then the refusal of the peninsula to recognize the new Kiev
authorities.
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‘Political blackmail’: Russia slams renewed EU sanctions, says measure is ‘hopeless’
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