MOSCOW, July 8 (RIA Novosti) - The speaker of the upper house of Russian parliament, the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko says it is impossible to isolate Russia in the modern world and there should be no talk of a new iron curtain.
“Today the world is global, the world has become multipolar and Russia is so involved in the global economy, in the financial and world systems, in the international political system, that it is hard to imagine the isolation of Russia from all these processes that are happening in the world. That is why there can be no talk of the iron curtain,” Matvienko said at a press conference Tuesday.
The official added that Western sanctions against Russia unveiled a number of weaknesses in the financial sector, among others.
“Every cloud has a silver lining and we began to think about how we can maintain our economic security, we began to think about import substitution in a number of fields, where we depend on it. We understand that we need to develop our own national payment system in order to be independent from the decisions that our foreign partners make,” Matvienko noted.
The US and EU imposed targeted sanctions against a number of Russian officials and companies in response to Moscow’s stand on the Ukrainian crisis. The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly called the language of sanctions counterproductive and warned the West of the boomerang effect they would have, especially on the European economy.
