Sanctions initiator: The West cannot do without Russian oil and gas

The ability to buy Russian oil and gas is a loophole in the system of anti-Russian sanctions, so that the Western economy itself does not collapse from these restrictive measures.

Former US Ambassador to the Russian Federation Michael McFaul stated this at the “Free Russia Congress” in Lithuania, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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“I worked on sanctions with the Obama administration. We have been developing these sanctions for years. We watched them for years and only after 5 years we received at least some answer as to how they work, because the Russian economy is actually powerful, it is huge.

So we don't need to have any illusions about how quickly they can work. Therefore, we specifically left certain loopholes in the sanctions regime, because we did not want to harm ourselves and our economy.

For example, why did we leave the opportunity to buy Russian gas and oil? Because it is necessary for the health of our economy. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with it or not, but these loopholes definitely need to be left,” McFaul said.