The new US sanctions against Russia have nothing to do with bilateral ties or the Skripal affair and really stem from the intensifying 2020 presidential campaign in America, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, told RT.

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing fresh restrictions on Moscow over its alleged involvement in the chemical poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, UK in March 2018.

London and Washington said that Russia was “highly likely” responsible for the attack but then failed to provide any convincing proof.

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The new sanctions will see the US opposing loans and any other assistance to Russia from international financial organizations, while also banning American banks from lending money to the country. Ironically, Trump made his move a day after what he called a “short, but good” phone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

The Skripal affair wasn’t the real reason for the new sanctions as “everything [the US does] in relation to Russia should be put in the context of the growing campaigning in the run-up to the election” in America in 2020, Ryabkov pointed out.

It’s most unfortunate that the rest of what has been called the US-Russian partnership some years ago is now being sacrificed because of the demands of some, who simply use relations with Russia as a tool in domestic US infighting.

The deputy FM said that Russia had long-since “adapted” itself to US sanctions and even managed to make parts of its economy, including agriculture, more effective because of them.

In order to further minimize the negative effect of the restrictions, Moscow is “first and foremost going away from the US financial system and departing from the dollar as a universal number one means of payment in the world.”

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