Russia finds sanctions highly regrettable and unworthy of EU - Russia's deputy FM

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Russia finds the sanctions imposed on it by the European Union to be highly regrettable, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters here Monday. For instance, the EU has added Crimean Chief Prosecutor Natalya Poklonskaya to its sanctions' list of individuals.

"We regret to see the sanctions train rolling downhill as if it doesn’t have an engine driver," he said. "It's an absolutely thoughtless and irresponsible policy that doesn’t match reality in any way."

New EU sanctions against Russian, Ukrainian individuals, companies come into effect

The European Union (EU) has made yet another extension of its blacklist of Russian and Ukrainian individuals who are banned from entering the EU member-states' territories and whose bank assets are subject to freezing.

The current blacklist compiled in connection with the Ukrainian crisis features sixty-one people, a third of them Ukrainian nationals, who stand in opposition to the incumbent regime in Kiev and are hence accused by the EU of undermining the territorial integrity of the much-troubled former Soviet republic.

The sanctions against them will be reviewed in November.

The new extension of the list has embraced 3 Russian officials, 4 Crimean officials and 6 Ukrainian supporters of federalization.

The new entrees are First Deputy Chief of the Kremlin administration Vyacheslav Volodin, the Commander of the Airborne Troops General Vladimir Shamanov, the Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Constitutional Legislation Vladimir Pligin, Acting Head of Russia's Federal Migration Service Pyotr Yarosh, Acting Head of the Federal Migration Service in Sevastopol Oleg Kozyura, Crimean Chief Prosecutor Natalya Poklonskaya, and Acting Prosecutor of Sevastopol Igor Shevchenko.

The Ukrainian section of the blacklist includes the people's mayor of Sloviansk Vyacheslav Ponomarev, leaders of the east Ukrainian self-defense forces Igor Blezer and Igor Kakidzyanov, the Chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Donetsk People's Republic Roman Lyagin, Head of the Election Commission of the city of Luhansk Alexander Malykhin, and Ddeputy of the Verkhovna Rada Oleg Tsariov.

Also, the assets of the Crimean companies Chernomorneftegaz and Feodosia will be frozen.

At the moment, the EU continues introducing "phase two" of sanctions. It has not yet taken a decision on whether to proceed to "phase three" - trade and economic restrictions on selected sectors of the Russian economy.

Diplomatic sources say a minimum of ten countries out of the EU’s twenty-eight - Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, and Spain - object to imposing economic sanctions on Moscow.

The very notion of "phases" or "levels" in sanctions against Russia appeared in the aftermath of an EU emergency summit that was held on March 6. The sanctions of "phase one" included the cancellation of the Russia-EU summit initially scheduled for June, suspension of the talks on slashing the visas issuance formalities, and suspension of the EU-Russian partnership agreement talks, which had not seen any noticeable progress over the previous two years in the wake of the EU’s inflexible position.