Russia ready for possible U.S. sanctions, including economic - Lavrov

MOSCOW. Jan 14 (Interfax) - Russia is ready for any turn of events that might be caused by possible additional U.S. sanctions, and it is getting rid of risks in the fields of economy and high technologies, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"They are capable of anything but rest assured we are ready for any turn of events. Any illusions we might have left in the economy have vanished over the past seven years," Lavrov said at a press conference on Friday.

"Every mechanism of economic ties that depend on entities controlled by the West clearly contain risks, but we are ridding of them in a swift and consistent manner, first and foremost in high tech sectors," Lavrov said.

Some in the United States say that a package of sanctions should be drafted not just "in case of the so-called attack on Ukraine;" they believe that "sanctions should be imposed without waiting for the attack to happen unless Russia pulls its forces away from the Ukrainian border in its own territory tomorrow or the day after tomorrow," Lavrov said.