Moscow: Russia will duly defend its national interests before the imposition by the United States (USA) of new and illegal sanctions against more than 40 legal entities of this country, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said today.
The sanctions to prohibit the purchase of several North American products, including in the high-tech sphere, by Russian companies constitute a new unfriendly act by Washington, according to Prensa Latina.
We can only regret that another outgoing US presidential administration prefers to worsen the already deteriorating US-Russian relations, Peskov said, alluding to the damage caused in 2016 by the then outgoing team of Democrat Barack Obama.
For his part, the head of the state corporation Roskosmos, Dmitri Rogozin, described as stupid and illegitimate the restrictions on the export of products to the United States by Russian companies in the aerospace sphere.
Among the 41 legal figures included in the list presented by the United States, some stand out, such as the Progreso Cosmic-Rocket Center or the main institute of the TNIImash corporation, with which the Flight Management Center works.
The Rostej corporation, which comprises helicopter production, aircraft and arms export conglomerates, said its inclusion on the list is an openly unfriendly gesture from Washington and an encouragement to reinforce its work.
In addition, 58 Chinese legal entities appear on the list, including high-tech companies and corporations from other spheres of the Asian giant. Washington’s general justification is that they are all consumers of military products.
In the case of Russia, it also includes the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Defense, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior in the province of Nizhegorod, the Irkut Corporation, producer of the MC-21 aircraft, and the Kazan Helicopter Factory.
In addition, the list includes the Sujoi United Aviation Company. At the time, President Vladimir Putin denounced that the United States, in a blatant way, uses sanctions to eliminate competitors in different sectors where it is unable to maintain a monopoly.
Since 2016, the outgoing administration of President Donald Trump has applied more than 50 packages of restrictions against Russia.