Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov urged the European Union to lift sanctions against Moscow over the Ukrainian conflict and promised to waive its counter-measures, Interfax news agency reported on Saturday.
Moscow in August banned most Western food imports, worth $9 billion a year, in response to U.S. and European Union sanctions over Russia's role in Ukraine.
"We don't expect anything from our European partners. The only thing we expect is for them to leave the meaningless sanctions spiral and move on to the path of lifting the sanctions and dropping the blacklists. This, in its turn, would allow us to drop our lists," Meshkov was quoted as saying.
"This will be conducive for us to waive counter-measures," he added.
Earlier this week, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said lower oil prices and Western financial sanctions will cost Russia around $130 billion-$140 billion a year, equivalent to around 7 percent of its economy.
Meshkov put the losses from sanctions for the EU at $50 billion next year, adding that trade turnover in some products between Russia and Europe has declined by double digit percentages.
This comes as the European Union imposed sanctions on the organizers of rebel elections in eastern Ukraine this month, the bloc said on Saturday, hitting the separatists and their organizations with asset freezes and travel bans.
As reporting by Reuters on Thursday, EU governments decided to add 13 Ukrainian separatists and five of their political organizations to a sanctions list that already covers 119 people and 23 entities.
Rebels in eastern Ukraine held their elections on Nov. 2, arguing that the vote was the next step after local referendums in May calling for independence from Ukraine.
The United States and European Union have denounced the vote as illegitimate, but Russia has said it would recognize the result, deepening a crisis that began with the popular overthrow of Ukraine's Moscow-backed president in February and Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula in March.
In its official journal, the European Union said Sergey Kozyakov, who was election commission chief in the Luhansk region, was "responsible for organizing the so-called elections ... in the so-called Luhansk People's Republic".
"He has actively supported actions and policies which undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine," the bloc said.
Others on the sanctions list are election organizers and separatist ministers in Luhansk and in the eastern region of Donetsk. They are accused of the same wrongdoing as Kozyakov.
The sanctions are the European Union's latest step in attempts to pressure Russia to halt its support for the rebels. They follow economic sanctions imposed on Russia in July.
EU governments are also discussing proposals for an "enhanced ban" on investments in Crimea.
REUTERS