Russia says it will continue oil and gas projects despite US sanctions

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MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday denounced new U.S. sanctions against Moscow’s energy sector as an attempt to harm Russia’s economy at the risk of destabilising global markets and said the country would press on with large oil and gas projects.

A ministry statement also said that Russia would respond to Washington’s “hostile” actions, announced on Friday, while drawing up its foreign policy strategy.

The statement said the measures amounted to “an attempt to inflict at least some damage to the Russian economy, even at the cost of the risk of destabilising world markets as the end approaches of President Joe Biden’s inglorious tenure in power.”

“Despite the convulsions in the White House and the machinations of the Russophobic lobby in the West, trying to drag the world energy sector into the ‘hybrid war’ unleashed by the United States against Russia, our country has been and remains a key and reliable player in the global fuel market.”

The measures constituted the broadest U.S. package of sanctions so far targeting Russia’s oil and gas revenues, part of measures to give Kyiv and the incoming administration of Donald Trump leverage to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine.

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, which explore for, produce and sell oil as well as 183 vessels that have shipped Russian oil, many of which are in the so-called shadow fleet of ageing tankers operated by non-Western companies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the measures would “deliver a significant blow” to Moscow. “The less revenue Russia earns from oil … the sooner peace will be restored,” he said.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin and Ron Popeski. Editing by Mark Potter and Diane Craft)