Ukraine Crisis: US ramps up Russian oil imports, pursues own interests at expense of EU allies

CCTV: In a recent report, the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China (RDCY) gave a full review of the means, features, impacts of and lessons from the US’ sanctions against Russia. It pointed out that increasing sanctions are not helpful to solve the issue, but have serious negative impacts on Europe and beyond, leading to global inflation, disruption to the supply chain and slower economic recovery. Do you have any comment? Zhao Lijian: Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out, the US has been increasing unilateral sanctions on Russia and coercing other countries to take side. This report you mentioned points out that in the past eight years from 2014 till now, a group pf countries, led by the United States, imposed 8,068 sanctions on Russia, which overtakes Iran as the most sanctioned country in the world. Since February 22 this year, 5,314 new sanctions have been slapped on Russia.  I also noted that Russian Security Council Deputy Secreta