UPDATE: Moscow condemns exterritoriality of US sanctions

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MOSCOW/ST. PETERSBURG, Nov 2 (PRIME) -- Moscow has an extremely negative approach to the exterritorial principle of the U.S. sanctions, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

“The exterritoriality of these laws is an unacceptable phenomenon for us, we are strongly against this and maintaimn an extremely negative approach to such sanction cases,” Peskov said, commenting on to the U.S. law that obliges Washington to monitor fulfillment of sanctions that prohibit foreigners from helping to Russian people and entities.

Peskov also said that the sanctions have a certain positive effect on the Russian economy.

Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council, the parliament’s upper house, said that the latest U.S. sanctions aim at limiting Russia’s competitiveness on the energy market and squeezing it out of the European market.

On October 31, the U.S. prohibited citizens and companies in its jurisdiction to cooperate with Russian companies in development of deep-sea, Arctic and shale energy source deposits from January 29, 2018, according to a statement by the Treasury Department.

“The situation is as follows. They have launched a sophisticated trade war with Russia under contrived pretexts. They hit the most sensitive spheres, they impose sanctions on the spheres where Russia is very competitive. They introduce sanctions and force their own expensive shale gas on Europe to squeeze Russia out of the European gas and oil markets. The latest round of sanctions is also aimed at limitation of our competitive advantages in the energy sphere,” she said.

“This contradicts the WTO rules, under which the United States put its signature. This shows what unreliable a partner the U.S. is.”

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