Russia’s parliament has passed a sweeping bill that gives the Kremlin the power to ban exports to the US and curb imports from western countries, as Moscow seeks to hit back against US sanctions imposed on oligarchs and leading companies last month.
The legislation, the latest in a series of tit-for-tat sanctions imposed by Moscow and western capitals since 2014, grants President Vladimir Putin power to impose a broad range of restrictions that could stymie trade and investment between Russia and the US. But the measure falls short of initial threats from lawmakers.
Following Washington’s latest sanctions package, which essentially cut off leading Russian oligarchs such as Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg and their companies from the international market, Moscow had threatened to stop titanium exports to the US — a move that would hurt aerospace company Boeing, which buys about 35 per cent of its titanium from Russia’s VSMPO-Avisma — and ban imports of drugs, alcohol and tobacco.