State Department: Not all U.S. companies should leave Russia

The US State Department has commented that not all American companies have left Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

According to Yevropeiska Pravda, this was stated at a briefing by US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

Answering a journalist's question about whether Moscow's isolation policy is consistent with the fact that Washington still allows American companies to operate in Russia, he said that each business must decide for itself, taking into account the risks of working in Russia.

"We have always emphasized that there are certain types of commercial activities that we are not trying to close in Russia. All of our sanctions have exceptions for food, medicine, and other humanitarian purposes because we do not believe that the United States is in conflict with the Russian people," Miller emphasized.

He added that the United States has not tried to tell companies working to provide food or pharmaceuticals to the Russian people that they should stop doing business there.

"We have targeted our sanctions, our export controls on those sectors of the Russian economy that fuel the Russian military machine, and we will continue to do so," Miller explained.

The State Department spokesman also pointed out that more than a thousand American companies have withdrawn from Russia since then, while Russia has passed new restrictive laws that he believes have discouraged a number of companies from operating there.

Author - Olena Madiak, 28/09/2023