According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow will have to respond to the newly imposed U.S. sanctions.
“We are behaving in a very restrained and patient way, but at some moment we will need to respond,” Putin said at a news conference following a meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. “It’s impossible to endlessly tolerate this kind of insolence towards our country.”
Criticizing the tougher sanctions approved by the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Putin asserted, “this practice is unacceptable — it destroys international relations and international law.”
However, he did not reveal what Russia’s response would be. “We will see,” continuing that he had not yet seen the final version of the U.S. sanctions bill.
The sanctions intend to punish Russia for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election, as well as for annexing of Crimea.
The Senate will most likely pass the sanctions. However, it is up to President Trump to approve or veto the legislation.
During the press conference, Putin stated that he “does not see [the Russia probe] as an investigation,” claiming that it has only caused a “rise in anti-Russian hysteria” in Washington.
However, the Russian president regretted his country’s worsening relations with the U.S.
“In answer to your question on whether I regret the worsening of relations with the US, I can give a direct answer: of course, we do regret it very much,” he told a journalist.
“It’s a great pity that Russian-US relations are being sacrificed to resolve questions of domestic politics,” he continued. “In this case, it is the battle between President Trump and his political opponents.”
If only the U.S. and Russia could work together peacefully, Putin claimed, they could “could solve very acute problems much more effectively that concern the people both of Russia and the US,” namely the “settlement of acute international crises (and) the fight with terrorism.”
He went on to hope that “today’s state of affairs will end at some point and we will move on to a new quality of relations,” as well as “strengthen them and build them up in the interests of the peoples of the US and Russia.”
