Russia warned on Tuesday that US sanctions against Moscow over the current crisis in Ukraine would end in a crash for the financial system of Washington, as President Putin ordered end to snap drills of armed forces.
Russia warned on Tuesday that US sanctions against Moscow over the current crisis in Ukraine would end in a crash for the financial system of Washington, as President Vladimir Putin ordered end to snap drills of armed forces.
Kremlin economic aide Sergei Glazyev said that Russia could reduce to zero its economic dependency on the United States if the sanctions were agreed.
“We would find a way not just to reduce our dependency on the United States to zero but to emerge from those sanctions with great benefits for ourselves,” Glazyev told the RIA Novosti news agency.
The Russian official said Moscow could stop using dollars for international transactions and create its own payment system using its "wonderful trade and economic relations with our partners in the East and South."
Russian firms and banks would also not return loans from American financial institutions, he said.
"An attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of the United States, which would cause the end of the domination of the United States in the global financial system," he added.
He said that economic sanctions imposed by the European Union would be a "catastrophe" for Europe, saying that Russia could halt gas supplies "which would be beneficial for the Americans" and give the Russian economy a useful "impulse".
Putin Orders End to Snap Drills of Armed Forces
Meanwhile on Tuesday, Putin ordered troops to return to their permanent bases after calling a snap drill to check their battle-readiness last week.
"The commander-in-chief President Vladimir Putin gave the order to the troops and units taking part in military exercises to return to their permanent bases," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.
Putin on February 26 ordered snap combat readiness drills involving thousands of troops, in what Moscow said was a routine exercise.
The drill involved army, navy and airforce troops based in the central and western military districts, a vast territory that includes regions bordering Ukraine but also extending to the Arctic.
The drill did not include any regions beyond Russia's borders such as Crimea, the Ukrainian Black Sea region which has become a flashpoint in the standoff between Moscow and Ukraine's new authorities after the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had said that the drill would include military exercises "on Russia's borders with other countries, including Ukraine".
