Moscow, June 16 The US is taking hostile actions against Russia that are worse than what it did during the Cold War, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
However, it (the US) is hurting itself in the process and will ultimately have to acknowledge Moscow's legitimate interests, he said during an interview with Russian media, RT reported.
"We are not even close to the culmination of the crisis," Peskov told RIA Novosti news agency, explaining the economic damage stemming from the West-Russia confrontation.
"Or rather they have not. We are in a more stable state thanks to macroeconomic measures taken by the government," he added.
Peskov assessed that the current amount of pressure against Russia is unprecedented.
Nothing of the kind was done "even during the Cold War" or to any other nation on Earth, he said.
The US and its allies seek to "strangle" Russia with their sanctions, he added.
The anti-Russian sanctions are "obviously creating problems for us, but in the long run they will cause problems just as serious for the nations who adopt those sanctions", the official predicted.
Europeans have felt it more than the Americans did so far, but the economic burden of antagonising Russia will increase for all of them, Peskov said.
He stressed that the problems were only partially explained by the Ukraine crisis and that Western leaders contributed to them by making a series of mistakes over the past several years, RT reported.
The current state of affairs has made it impossible for Russia and the West to return to business as usual, the official said, adding that from now on Moscow will use a more robust approach towards the US.
Russia has all the reasons it could need to completely break diplomatic ties with the US after all Washington had done, but will not do so: "The US is not going anywhere, and we'll have to live with that," he said.
"While preserving flexibility on constructive issues, we will protect our interests and demand (that the US) respect our concerns and interests. There will be communication in some form," he added.
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