UPDATE: Report: Russia hopes to cut dependence on US payment systems, dollar

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MOSCOW, Aug 7 (PRIME) -- Moscow plans to speed up work to diminish dependence on U.S. payment systems and the U.S. dollar as a currency of settlements in response to the latest U.S. sanctions, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview to the Foreign Ministry’s journal International Affairs seen by PRIME on Monday.

“We will obviously become more active in the work connected with imports substitution, cutting dependence on U.S. payment systems and on the U.S. dollar as a currency of settlements and so on. This has become a vital necessity,” Ryabkov said.

Still, Moscow hopes that no open confrontation will happen with Washington. “Nevertheless, I hope that there will be no confrontation and we will work toward finding ways to minimize the damage from this event if we are unable to normalize (the situation) completely,” he said.

The new U.S. sanctions will stay for a long time.

“This is not a one-day event, and it is difficult to forecast now how much time we will need to develop at least a more or less normal modus operandi with the U.S. We will try to do this...But the problem is that without approval of both chambers of the Congress, without decisions that will cancel everything that they have conjured up in the U.S.–Russia relations legally, it will take very much time and work to eliminate that, and it is a fact,” he said.

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill introducing additional sanctions against Russia among several other states. The bill prohibits companies to invest more than U.S. $1 million in a single payment or more than $5 million during the course of a year in construction of Russian export pipelines, as well as provision of goods, services, technologies and information support for the construction.

After Trump signed the bill, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel called the new sanctions illegitimate and said that Washington wants to clear a share of the European energy market for U.S. exports. European Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker said that Brussels will protect economic interests of the E.U.

But Ryabkov said he does not believe in serious disagreements about the anti-Russian sanctions between the E.U. and the U.S.

“I don’t believe in independence of current Europe as a player, especially what concerns Russia. Unfortunately, they also have done too much and have created so much of a burden in relations with our country that it will be tough for them to reject it…But lobbyism of businesses and economic interests are factors here. Still, I would not overstate its importance in the new situation,” he said.

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