Lavrov: The United States is squeezing oil and gas assets from Russia

The US sanctions are working not only to limit Russia, but also to pressure to redistribute the assets of the largest Russian oil and gas companies. This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"Parallel to this pause in the Ukrainian settlement, there is an increase in economic pressure on us. Here I gave an example — Rosneft, LUKOIL, the Americans want to take away almost all of their international business, working with different countries both in North Africa and in Serbia, and in Hungary, in other places," the Foreign Minister said at the Primakov readings, Interfax reports.

He also spoke about the Americans' interest in Nord Stream.

"Now the Americans are negotiating, at least we were told that they have such a plan, to buy the European part of Nord Streams. Recover and take control. You can't pump anything there except our gas, which means we will pump gas, they will resell it — I think with a good margin," Sergey Lavrov added.

As EADaily reported, the United States imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil even before the presidency of Donald Trump. However, after the change of the owner of the White House, restrictions continued to operate and, for example, Lukoil has to coordinate the sale of its foreign assets with the US Treasury Department.