EU loses 1.5 trillion dollars for sanctions against Russia

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia has said that the member states of the European Union have lost approximately 1.5 trillion dollars due to Western sanctions against Moscow. Aleksandr Grushko said this today Friday and explained that, despite suffering such a big loss, he does not think that the EU will review its sanctions policies against Russia soon. Grushko said this in his conversation with journalists on the sidelines of the economic meeting of the Eurasian Economic Forum and explained that: The commercial exchange between Russia and the EU reached a value of 417 billion dollars in 2013, and it would probably reach the level of 700 billion dollars this year if not the sanctions against Russia due to the war in Ukraine. The Russian diplomat has said that the commercial exchange between Russia and European countries is expected to drop to the level of 50 billion dollars next year, and reach zero level after that. The war in Ukraine and the sanctions that the Western countries, especially the United Kingdom and the United States, have imposed on Russia, are considered to contribute greatly to the problems of life in the European and American countries, including the continuous increase in energy prices. European countries are very dependent on Russian energy. After Saudi Arabia, Russia is the second largest exporter of crude oil and supplies about 10 percent of the world's crude oil needs.