Russia doing "what is necessary" not to depend on US

Russia is doing all that is necessary not to depend on the US, which controls the dollar international financial system, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday, commenting on the inclusion of 33 Russian people and entities in the US sanctions lists on Thursday.

"Grave international problems that affect many members of the global community once again fall prey to electoral cycles," he said. "It is short-term vision, because, as I already said, confidence in the current principles of international financial system was seriously undermined. A growing number of countries are thinking about how to avoid any dependence on it."

"We are already drawing conclusions from this situation; we are doing all that is necessary not to depend on the countries that act in this way regarding their international partners," Lavrov went on. "A growing number of our partners in Asia and Latin America start using similar approaches. I think that this movement will continue."

The Russian foreign minister noted that confidence in dollar is sharply declining due to the new sanctions introduced by the US. "As for the new sanctions against Russian persons and entities declared by the US, nothing can surprise us now. Regarding the Sukhoi company, the plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur - these sanctions are definitely a new sign of dirty rivalry. We can see again that the dollar system brought discredit on itself and confidence in dollar is sharply declining," he noted.
The new sanctions

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump signed an order which, according to the US administration’s comments, is aimed at restricting the observance of the US sanctions regime against Russia.

The text of this decree and the covering letter sent to the US Congress does not stipulate the introduction of additional restrictive measures against Russia. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) specified that the document gives the authority to the secretary of the treasury to undertake specific actions for the further implementation of sanctions and gives orders to the US government’s agencies to take all necessary measures within their powers to provide the complete implementation of the named sanctions. Thus, according to the Department of the Treasury, it concerns just the delegation of powers to launch restrictions to some federal government structures.

The order contains restrictions that the US government had to launch against Moscow under the "Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act" (CAATSA), which was signed by Trump in the summer of 2017.