Senator Warns Of Inability For Parliamentary Exchanges If US Sanctions Russian Lawmakers

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published January 26, 2023 | 11:00 PM

US lawmakers will not have any legislative exchanges with Russian colleagues if Washington continues to sanction them for their beliefs, Senator Rand Paul said during a congressional question-and-answer session with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland on Thursday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2023) US lawmakers will not have any legislative exchanges with Russian colleagues if Washington continues to sanction them for their beliefs, Senator Rand Paul said during a congressional question-and-answer session with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland on Thursday.

"If we're going to sanction people for their belief and, you know, their sort of nationalist version of the world, then we won't have any, we won't have any discussion between people or any legislative exchange," Paul said.

Paul made the comment after Nuland stated that the United States sanctions Russian lawmakers over their support for the special military operation in Ukraine and for Crimea rejoining Russia.

"That would be about 90 percent of the people," Paul said. "I would venture to say that every member of the Duma probably supports Crimea.

.. This is their perspective."

After the start of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, the US-led collective West imposed comprehensive sanctions on Russia and provided more than 100 billion Dollars in military and other aid to Kiev. However, the moves led to an increase in inflation, including the prices of electricity, fuel and food in Europe and in the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier the policy to contain and weaken Russia is a long-term strategy for the collective West and the imposed sanctions have dealt a severe blow to the global economy. Putin said the main goal of the collective West is to make the lives of millions of people worse. However, Putin and other Russian officials have repeatedly said that Russia will solve the problems created by the policies of the collective West.