Putin: Sanctions will be counterproductive

At his first meeting with reporters in the Ukraine crisis, Russian president Vladimir Putin warned Tuesday that western sanctions would be counterproductive and “cause harm elsewhere.” “If they don’t want to come to Sochi, they will not come” he said, shrugging. Earlier, a Kremlin economic aide, Sergey Glazyev, said if Washington subscribed to sanctions against Russia, Moscow would reduce its economic dependency to the US to zero and may stop using dollars for international transactions.