Are Enhanced Sanctions Against Russia Aimed at ‘Regime Change in Moscow’?

Washington’s decision to expand anti-Russian sanctions list is a “classic example of US hypocrisy and double-speak” that pursues a goal of destabilizing situation in Russia, an American anti-war activist claimed.

On Thursday, the US Department of the Treasury added five Russian defense companies and dozens of Gazprom-associated companies and som 37 individuals to the sanctions list over the Ukraine crisis.

Commenting on the news to the Iranian broadcaster Press-TV, Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space said that by making this gesture Obama Administration wants to camouflage the real actor that has triggered the crisis.

“The US says that Russia has violated international law and therefore must be continually sanctioned, but in fact the truth reveals that the United States spent 5 billion dollars to foster, to make happened the coup d'etat in Kiev in 2014,” he said on Saturday.

Gagnon added that Washington provided aid to armed nationalist factions in Ukraine that were actively involved in the overthrow of the country’s legitimate president and the subsequent armed conflict in Donbass.

Earlier in March, US President Barack Obama signed a decree extending the sanctions until March 6, 2017.

Those moves, activist observed are aimed not at restoring peace and stability in Ukraine or at upholding the rule of international law, but at destabilizing Russia.

“The US wants regime change in Moscow, and is determined to get it one way or the other,” he claimed.

Moscow, however, was calm on the sanctions list expansion.

On Saturday, Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev labeled the US move a “convulsive act,” saying that “mirror” Moscow response won’t follow.

A day earlier, CEO of Russia’s Sberbank German Gref said German Gref suggested that sanctions won’t affect Russian economy, as they are purely from the “sphere of politics."