G7 sanctions will strike hard on Russia’s economy, finance and armory

Leaders of the ‘Big Seven’ countries are preparing to introduce sanctions against three sectors of the Russian economy.

This follows from the communiqué on the results of the meeting that took place in the Hague yesterday, NEWSru.com reports.

“We remain ready to intensify actions including coordinated sectoral sanctions that will have an increasingly significant impact on the Russian economy, if Russia continues to escalate this situation”, - the document reads.

“I assume, there is an agreement as to what most important sector should be focused on. Energetic is one of them; finance and banks – another; one more sector is armory, - a Washington’s representative said commenting on the statement. – Everyone admits that such actions bear a certain costs for the economies of the G7 countries. However, the fact is taken into account that for Russia the costs will be much higher due to the isolation from the global economy”.

The heads of the G7 countries agreed that their ministries for energetics will develop measures for lessening the dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies.

The major role in providing assistance to Ukraine will be played by the IMF, the statement says, all the kinds of Western assistance will be available for Ukraine only under that conditions that it meets all the IMF’s requirements.

The G7 countries could not exclude Russia from the G8. Since no such procedure is foreseen, they had to announce the “suspension of their participation in the G8” in order to freeze this forum, reads the statement, adopted at the meeting.

The European Union, USA and Japan have already introduced a number of sanctions against Russia due to its position on the Crimea. Japanese sanctions turned out to be ones of the softest: Tokyo has frozen the negotiations on visa facilitation and has stopped talks on investment agreements and agreements on the use of the outer space.

The USA and European Union have introduced personal sanctions, having frozen the assets and issued a visa ban on president Putin’s inner circle.