Russia to protect its own interests when responding to new EU sanctions

Russia’s response to the new EU sanctions will focus on protecting its own interests, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
“Our view is that making such decisions at a time when the peace process [in Ukraine] is becoming more sustainable means undermining this peace process,” Lavrov told Rossiya 1 television.
He said Moscow would react to the sanctions “calmly and adequately, seeking to protect its own interests in the first place”.
On Friday morning, the European Union published the details of its new sanctions against Russia, which will become effective from September 12.
The new sanctions reduce the term of loans to leading Russian state-run banks from 90 to 30 days and apply these restrictions to government-controlled Rosneft, Transneft, Gazprom Neft, Uralvagonzavod, Oboronprom, and the United Aircraft Corporation.
The EU also blacklisted another 24 Russian and Ukrainian officials, thus bringing their total number to 119.
The new sanctions were imposed several days after the international contact group had signed a ceasefire agreement in Minsk on September 5 and began talks on a political settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.