The president and chairman of Russia’s state-owned VTB Bank Andrei Kostin told CNBC Tuesday that U.S. sanctions on Russian businesses and individuals are widely disliked.
“Nobody likes American sanctions, and Europeans (don’t like them) as well,” VTB Bank’s Andrey Kostin told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
VTB bank was placed on a U.S. Ukraine-related sanctions list in 2014. Andrey Kostin was added to a 2018 list of sanctioned individuals as he was deemed to be a government official.
The U.S. and EU, along with other western nations, placed sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and its role in a subsequent pro-Russian uprising in the east of the country. The sanctions affected certain Russian sectors, including the financial industry, entities, and individuals.
“I don’t think European companies like (the secondary) sanctions that they’re facing either on (doing business with) Iran or Russia. And it creates certain restrictions for the development of relations between Russia and Europe as well, particularly on the Nord Stream 2 (gas pipeline project) although the project will still go ahead, as far as I understand. Of course, its future is not quite clear though,” Kostin said.
Thousands of top business, political and charity figures are attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) conference in Davos in Switzerland this week.
The annual event can have significant consequences for global affairs and attracts worldwide interest, as it brings together some of the most powerful people on the planet.
