US ready to hit Russia's economy without support of EU

Washington is ready to impose sectoral economic sanctions on Russia.

The Obama Administration is ready to act alone, Bloomberg writes with a reference to participants of yesterday's closed-door meeting with the EU ambassadors.

The United States urged the EU to adopt tougher measures against Russia, according to Bloomberg. American officials say the actions of Russian president Vladimir Putin destabilise the situation in Ukraine, RBC reports.

The Obama administration is ready to act unilaterally if EU leaders, during a meeting in Brussels today, balk at imposing sanctions that are expected to hit sectors of Russian economy, according to participants of the meeting.

The ITAR-TASS news agency said earlier with a reference to a EU source that at least nine EU members were prepared to veto the new package of sanctions against Russia at the EU summit in Brussels.

“France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia and Italy, which currently holds the EU presidency, see no grounds under the present circumstances for sectoral trade and economic sanctions against Russia, and they will oppose these measures at the summit. That is what the situation looks like now at the European Union Committee at the level of permanent representatives, which usually accurately reflects the alignment of forces ahead of an EU meeting,” the diplomat said.

According to him, they fear new restrictive measures will hit both Russia and the European economy, which is going through hard times, and weaken the EU's positions in a dispute with the US.

Leaders of the US and Germany announced at a press conference in early May that sectoral sanctions, the so called third round of sanctions, could be imposed on Russia. The initial ground for the sanctions was a possible disruption of the presidential election in Ukraine on May 25. Later, Moscow's unwillingness to take concrete steps to de-escalate the Ukrainian crisis was named as the reason for restrictive measures. However, the EU summit on June 27, 2014, did not take a decision to introduce sectoral sanctions.

Russia's GDP may lose 0.2-0.3% if sectoral sanctions are imposed, according to “The main directions of the budget policy for 2015 and for the planning period of 2016 and 2017" published on July 10.