ITAR-TASS — Russia has no plans to punish West with retaliatory sanctions — Putin

Putin announces that Russia will institute a policy of trade protectionism to further its own interests rather than retaliatory sanctions to hurt the EU, since the West has violated the principles of free trade  and sanctity of contract.

Russia will not pressure the West with sanctions but will pursue its own interests, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. 

The introduction of protective measures is not caused by the striving to punish our partners, Putin said. "First of all, we are thinking about our own interests and development goals," he added. 

Putin believes that the Western countries that adopted sanctions against Russia in fact defied the principles of the World Trade Organization (WTO). 

“The sanctions imposed on Russia are nothing but a departure from the basic WTO principles by some of our partners,” Putin said at a meeting of the State Council on Thursday. “They violate the principle of all countries’ equal access to the markets of goods and services. They ignore the most favored nation status in trade and the principle of fair and free competition.”

ITAR-TASS
Russia has no plans to punish West with retaliatory sanctions — Putin

See also Reuters, Russia's Putin says sanctions violate principles of WTO

Countries enforcing trade sanctions do not have to justify them at the WTO unless they are challenged in a trade dispute. Justifications for restricting trade can range from environmental and health reasons to religious scruples. 

But some diplomats fear that wide-ranging sanctions against Russia could only be explained by national security concerns. That would be a legitimate argument, but one that has never been invoked in a WTO dispute and could unravel mutual trust.

Capitalism with strings.