US and EU may impose a variety of sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine, Nuland warns
The United States and the European Union could impose a variety of different sanctions on Russia if it invades more Ukrainian territory, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said at a U.S. State Department briefing on Jan. 11.
“Now, as we’ve done in the past, the Unites States may take one set of measures, and Europe and other allies may take parallel steps that are not exactly the same, but also painful to Russia, because we have different economic exposure,” said Nuland.
The undersecretary added that the United States remains confident that the consultations it has had with its allies will help produce an impactful set of sanctions to apply to Russia.
“We’ve been working on this (set of sanction measures) for about two-and-a-half months, engaging on all levels – starting from the president,” Nuland said, adding that these new sanctions would be “extremely painful (for Russia).”
U.S news outlet Bloomberg recently reported on the anxiety expressed by the leadership of several European countries about the impact additional anti-Russia sanctions could have on their economies, and the possibility of Kremlin retaliating by scaling down natural gas shipments to the EU.
Fears of a renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine, which the sanction measures are intended to address, began in late October when Russian troops began building up on the Ukrainian border and in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
Presently over 100,000 Russian troops are estimated to be deployed on or near the Russian-Ukrainian border.
While Russia has denied plans to invade, it has also refused to provide assurances that it would not do so, instead, demanding so-called “security guarantees” for itself from the United States and NATO.
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