Your trusted source

Press TV has conducted an interview with Dmitry Babich, with the Voice of Russia Radio Station from Moscow, about Russia saying the US is not in a position to impose sanctions on the country over a probable oil-for-goods deal between Moscow and Tehran.

Press TV: Mr. Babich, do you think by going ahead with these transactions with Iran, Moscow is risking its relations with the US?

Babich: Well right now relations are so bad that there is not much to risk. I think that morally Russia and Iran have a point because it is not for the US to accuse Russia or Iran of being a danger to humanity.

Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 has not invaded ... [any] country. The United States invaded many countries. Russia when it returned the territory of Crimea which had been populated by Russians for two centuries also did not do anything morally unacceptable. There may be legal questions about Crimea which was given to Ukraine by none other than the totalitarian communist dictator ... but morally the case is absolutely clear.

So I think that from the moral, from the human point of view there is nothing that United States or the European Union can object in terms of Russia’s business relations with Iran.

Press TV: And now Mr. Babich the US has said that if this deal goes ahead it is going to impose sanctions. What kind of action do you think Washington can take against Russia over this?

Babich: Well sanctions which would not cost the United States anything, these sanctions have already been imposed on Russia and not during the Ukrainian crisis but all before it.

The same is true about Russia’s relations with the European Union. Russian companies have been discriminated in the West for many years. There is no cooperation in the military sphere, the visa situation is bad, so when the EU or the United States say we are going to put on hold our military cooperation with Russia, it means they are going to put on hold nothing.

As for sanctions that would hurt the Russian economy, the problem is that the only sanctions that the EU and the United States can impose, you know these sanctions would hurt Russia but they would hurt also the Western countries because you know the reason is very practical.

The United States has not been buying any Russian weapons. The EU does not buy almost any ready-made Russian products. They shield their market from us. So they cannot say oh, we no longer buy Russian helicopters, we no longer buy Russian industrial goods.

They can only say we no longer buy Russian oil and gas, but if they do not buy Russian oil and gas they will have tremendous economic problems probably even bigger than Russia’s because the European industry walks on the Russian oil and gas.