- New US sanctions do not restrict exports, for which Russia receives live money and which feeds a motor of aggression against Ukraine. They work to slow down Russian gas and oil production. They do access to technologies, services, financing, investments, and obtaining credit resources very complicated. These restrictions have been in place before. But now the window has narrowed as much as possible. If the investment is more than one million dollars, the investor company is subject to sanctions. If during the year there are several transactions in excess of five million, the company will be also fined. And what are the millions to develop, for example, the Arctic shelf? Crumbs Tens of billions of dollars of investments are needed there. If you spend money through other firms, then you must create a million of them. Nobody will do this.

Are these restrictions tight enough?

- Destructive for Russia would be sanctions related to an oil embargo. One could not call it with the word "embargo". The West could reach an agreement to replace Russian oil in Europe with non-Russian one. There is no shortage of oil on the market. On the contrary, there is a surplus. Russia receives the main income from the export of crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas, a small amount of coal and electricity.

Will Russia stop development of new deposits?

- It has already actually stopped it. Moscow believed that sanctions would continue for a year, but then Western pragmatism would prevail. Two to three years for such megaprojects is not so long term. They have been developing for tens of years. They wanted to sit it out. But with adoption of new sanctions, the situation turned at 180 degrees. The fourth year has passed, and the sanctions have not been softened, but- on the contrary - tightened. And even the mechanism is such that it is impossible to cancel them by the US Administration without the consent of the American parliament. We can make parallels with Jackson-Veinck amendments (a supplementary to the US Trade Act, which restricted financial and trade relations with countries whose governments violate human rights; canceled in 2012, - Gazeta.ua). The Soviet Union was over, but it was still in force.