US expert calls for new sanctions against Russia during Senate hearings
Ukrinform reported on Ian Brzezinski’s remarks during recent hearings in the US Senate. Brzezinski, the Senior Fellow in the International Security Program on the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Advisors Group, said that the acting sanctions against Russia weren’t sufficient to make them cease aggression against Ukraine. He added that was reason enough for the West to impose additional restrictions against whole sectors of Russian economy, instead of simply extending them.
“The West should get to strengthening these actions from targeted sanctions, directed against certain Russian citizens and organizations to the more extensive and comprehensive sanctions against Russian financial and energy sectors instead of discussing the relevance of extension of sanctions against Russia,” Brzezinski noted.
He pointed out that the acting economic restrictions against the Russian Federation obviously haven’t produced the desired results because Moscow hasn’t left Crimea and eastern Ukraine in the two years since the conflict in Ukraine began. According to him, the Kremlin actually used this time to strengthen their control over occupied regions and its forced leverages against Ukraine and other countries, including Georgia and Moldavia.
The expert called the Russian oil refining industry one of the most vulnerable areas where new sanctions would be the most sensible. “Meanwhile, Russia is the main oil producer but its oil refining capacities are outdated and dependent on the West and the USA,” he noted. At the same time, Brzezinski said that the assistance strategy to Ukraine should integrate a number of other immediate and long-term initiatives. They should be aimed at capacity building of Ukraine’s self-defense, assistance for the implementation of reforms of political and economic institutions in Ukraine and also integration of the country into the Euro-Atlantic community.