Matviyenko: U.S. sanctions - blackmail
MOSCOW. March 17 (Interfax) - Speaker of the federation Council Valentina Matviyenko described the United States decision to introduce sanctions against Russian officials as political blackmail, including herself, saying that she has neither bank accounts, nor assets, nor property abroad.
"The introduction of sanctions against top-level Russian officials who perform their state functions is an unprecedented decision never practiced even in the Cold War era," Matviyenko told reporters. "To call things by their proper names, it is political blackmail. The U.S. knows very well that I have neither bank accounts, nor assets, nor property abroad," she said.
Matviyenko added that she had never ran a business of her own. "Therefore, I consider statements of this kind regarding myself as an attempt to put pressure on my position of principle, and to force me to change it," she said.
