Updated 5:59 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 11 (RIA Novosti) – Moscow has prepared a new package of retaliatory measures to Western sanctions, that include restrictions on imports of cars and textile products, but hopes that common sense will prevail, a senior Kremlin official told RIA Novosti Thursday.
"There is a whole range of non-agricultural products that make our, first of all European, partners dependent on us," he said. "For example, imports of cars, primarily second-hand cars, as well as certain types of textile products that we are quite capable of producing on our own. Not all of them, but certain kinds," presidential aide Andrei Belousov told RIA Novosti on the sidelines of the Samara economic forum.
"The Russian ministry of economic development has already prepared a list of these goods, but I hope that common sense will prevail and we will not have to introduce these restrictive measures," he said.
Moscow has already imposed a year-long ban on the import of meat, seafood, fruit and vegetables, as well as milk products from the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia and Norway as a response to Western sanctions.
The European Union and the United States have implemented several rounds of economic sanctions over Moscow's alleged participation in the Ukrainian conflict.
On Monday, the European Union officially adopted a new round of sanctions against Russia, but the measures did not come into force yet.
Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Ukrainian conflict and said that sanctions "threaten international peace and stability" and run counter to the principles of international law.
