Possible U.S., EU individual sanctions against Ukrainians illegitimate - ministry
MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) - The sanctions the United States and European Union have threatened to impose on a number of Ukrainian officials are illegitimate from the viewpoint of international law, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
"As regards the individual sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union which they are now trying to operate with, from our point of view and from the viewpoint of the international-law, justification for these sorts of measures, we consider them absolutely illegitimate and in no way associated with them," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday.
That is the position of very many member states of the United Nations, he said.
"We are drawing a very clear line that if sanctions are collective and passed collectively in the UN SC (Security Council) - which alone is authorized to pass and implement restrictive measures with respect of States - in this sense we stick to our obligations very clearly," Lukashevich said.
A case in point is the situation around Iran and Lebanon, he said.
