During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two-day state visit to Singapore, where the two countries are marking 50 years of diplomatic ties, Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov gave an exclusive interview to Television Rain, in which he spoke about the need for the importance of maintaining trade ties with the United States.
When the topic turned to U.S. and Western sanctions against Russia, Peskov took issue with the word "sanctions."
"Sanctions conform to international law. In this case, we don’t recognize those unilateral restrictions as legitimate sanctions because we deem them to be illegal,” he said. “So it will probably be more correct to say ‘limitations’ or ‘restrictions,’ but not sanctions.”
Russia is currently facing a from the U.S. and its allies over the annexation of Crimea, military involvement in Eastern Ukraine, the death of Sergei Magnitsky, interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and the deployment of a military grade nerve agent “Novichok”– in the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England.
Those sanctions target dozens of individuals and entities, taking aim at specific sectors of the Russian economy, including armaments and energy, with an eye towards restricting access to Western capital markets and dual-use and other sensitive technologies.
The sanctions effectively “freeze” financial assets of the sanctioned entities on U.S. territory and ban U.S. individuals and groups from engaging in business transactions with named Russian individuals and groups.
The European Union has currently enacted sanctions against 155 people from Russia and Ukraine as a result of Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and military involvement in Eastern Ukraine, which the “forcible control” by Russia.
The EU has also frozen the assets of 44 entities from both countries, with sources in Brussels telling Radio Free Europe were set to be sanctioned over on November 11 in the so-called “Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics,” which the United States, France and Germany have called a “sham” and “illegal.”
Peskov and other Russian officials have previously attempted to portray such sanctions as illegal.
As in August 2017, Andrey Klimov, Deputy Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee, Federation Council, similarly argued the sanctions are illegal because the only sanctions recognized by international law are those of the UN Security Council.
Russia and other parties have also contested the use of unilateral sanctions, citing the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which, among other things, includes the right to trade without discrimination.
Bill Browder, the U.S. born British financer who spearheaded the Magnitsky Act, which bans Russian officials suspected of human rights abuses from stepping foot on U.S. soil, freezes their assets, and bars U.S. firms from carrying out financial transactions with them, told Polygraph.info there is “no truth” to Peskov’s statement.
“The sanctions that are currently in place are travel bans and asset freezes in the countries where this is happening and it’s not a function of international law, it’s a function of domestic law. The United States has a right to deny entry to anyone it wants – It’s a privilege to travel to the United States, not a right. And furthermore, it’s a privilege to use the U.S. banking system,” Browder said.
“The only thing he can say is the UN can’t sanction anybody but individual member states can do anything they want,” he added.
Ambassador Daniel Fried of the Atlantic Council mirrored Browder’s comments.
“U.S. sanctions are legal under U.S. law because the U.S. jurisdiction over its own banking system and currency,” he said. “Any company or financial institution, U.S. or not, that seeks the benefits of or access to the U.S. financial system or U.S. markets needs to comply with US laws.”
He also noted that sanctions against Russia itself came as the result of violations of international law, noting the “invasion and occupation of Ukraine and annexation of its territory.
And, Moscow itself has been no stranger to imposing unilateral sanctions despite claims they must be sanctioned through the UN Security Council.
“As for Russian claims that sanctions are valid only with UN authorization, I don’t recall any such restraint when it came to Russia’s sanctions against imports from the EU, its sanctions against Ukraine, or its sanctions against Georgia,” Fried said.