MOSCOW -- A top Russian legislator has urged the West to stop threatening sanctions against Moscow, as the potential isolation could be mutually counter-productive.
"Threats and language of sanctions towards Russia are absolutely counter-productive. It is impossible to imagine how sanctions could isolate Russia from the global economic process," Federation Council (upper house of the parliament) chairperson Valentina Matvienko told reporters.
She said the Russian economy was deeply integrated into the global economy, and trade between Russia and the West was mutually beneficial.
Noting that 40 percent of Russia's imports came from the European Union, and 50 percent of its exports went to the EU, Matvienko said it was hard to imagine how these trade flows could be stopped.
She said any reasonable politician must understand the Russian and Ukrainian economies were intertwined, so Moscow coud not be detached from Ukrainian affairs.
Matvienko said, if a "radical and neo-fascist plug" in Ukraine was not stopped now, other countries would soon experience the overthrow of their authorities, too.
"It's time to stop speaking to Russia with the language of ultimatums," she said, adding, only through political dialogue could it be possible to work out a positive agenda for Moscow and the West.
