Russia defiant in face of new US and EU sanctions

Moscow was defiant on Wednesday in the face of sweeping US and EU sanctions designed to punish its continued backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine, promising that Russia would localise production and emerge stronger.

The EU also banned any trade in arms and the US prohibited transactions with Russia's United Shipbuilding Corp, which it classified as a defence company. Both the EU and the United States will ban export of technologies to Russia for deep-water, Arctic or shale oil drilling. The sanctions from the EU, which does far more trade with Russia, will be reviewed in three months. Russia called the new sanctions "destructive and short-sighted

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said at a meeting with representatives of Russia's military-industrial complex on Monday that they could turn to alternative markets for arms components and that any "technological difficulties" suffered as a result of sanctions would ultimately prove beneficial.....western technologies to drill in the Arctic will not be really needed until conventional reserves begin drying up by 2020. In response to sanctions, Rosneft will likely seek to divest from non-core assets and decrease its participation in projects in Venezuela and other countries, he said.

"It's a very connected industry, [high-technology] components could be produced in Russia or China but it will take time to re-orient,