U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland in Moscow. File photoWASHINGTON, Mar 9The US will continue to tighten sanctions against Russia if Moscow does not de-escalate the situation around Ukraine, US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said.
"We are not done with sanctions if they are not done with this war, and we will continue to toughen them up", Nuland said at a hearing in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine in the early morning of February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops, the civilian population is not in danger. With the support of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive. But the occupation of Ukraine is out of the question, the President of Russia stressed.