Moscow retains the right to respond to the restrictive measures in connection with the decision of the EU Council to expand the sanctions against Russia, the comments of the Information and Press Department of the Russian MFA reads.

''We consider the reasons behind lifting new portion of sanctions on our country as absolutely ungrounded and retain the right to take counter-measures. We are disappointed with the politicization of the issue reduced to the absurdity, this actually being a simple commercial dispute between economic entities. We definitely refuse the attempts to use it as an example of allegedly unconscientious Russian companies,'' the comment reads.

It is also noted that Russia retains interest in developing economic cooperation with Germany and EU despite the introduction of restrictive measures. ''Despite the unfolding situation, we express our interest in maintaining and progressive development of economic cooperation with Germany and EU. We adhere to all the commitments taken up earlier. We aim to remove through joint efforts the negative consequences of sanction instrumentation,'' the Russian MFA statement says.