The Kremlin on Sunday warned Europe against imposing fresh sanctions on Russia, cautioning that tougher measures would trigger a more painful economic recoil for EU nations.

Kremlin called the sanctions ‘illegal’ and said that Russia had grown resistant to such actions.(via REUTERS) Kremlin called the sanctions ‘illegal’ and said that Russia had grown resistant to such actions.(via REUTERS)

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described the proposed sanctions as “illegal” and said Russia had developed resilience against such punitive actions.

Responding to remarks by Western European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, that stricter sanctions could pressure Moscow into peace talks, Peskov said that only “logic and arguments” could bring Russia to the negotiating table.

“The more serious the package of sanctions, which, I repeat, we consider illegal, the more serious will be the recoil from a gun to the shoulder. This is a double-edged sword,” he told state television.

Peskov told state television’s top Kremlin correspondent, Pavel Zarubin, that he did not doubt the EU would impose further sanctions but that Russia had built up “resistance” to such sanctions.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered a wave of Western sanctions on Russia, and it is by far the most sanctioned major economy in the world.

European Commission’s fresh proposal of sanctions on Russia

The European Commission on June 10 proposed a new round of sanctions against Russia, targeting Moscow’s energy revenues, its banks and its military industry to force the country to end the war in Ukraine.

On the other hand, the United States has so far refused to toughen its own sanctions on Moscow.

Europe hopes that sanctions will force President Vladimir Putin to seek peace in Ukraine. But the measures don’t seem to be working. Though the Russian economy contracted in 2022, it grew in 2023 and 2024 at faster rates than the European Union.

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that any additional EU sanctions on Russia would simply hurt Europe more, and pointed out that Russia’s economy grew at 4.3 per cent in 2024 compared to the eurozone’s growth of 0.9 per cent.