OREANDA-NEWS  New Possible US sanctions against Russia are selective and will not affect the systemically important banks of the Russian Federation, the Director of the group "Sovereign ratings" S&P Global Ratings Karen Vartapetov. He expressed this opinion within the framework of the conference organized by the rating Agency.

"Our basic scenario is to maintain the current sanctions regime, and possible new sanctions will be quite selective and affect individuals, as well as companies and non-systemically important banks. Accordingly, the shock of such sanctions, Russia is quite able to absorb without negative impact on the rating", - he said.

The expert also noted that the systemic effect of the US sanctions on the energy sector, the state debt and the state banks of the Russian Federation may be significant. "In our opinion, the most brutal measures are provided for by DETER (the law on protection of elections from threats by imposing restrictions) and DESKAA (the law on sanctions "on transactions relating to investments in energy projects that support state or semi-state entities of Russia"). Both laws provide for restrictions on the purchase of a new sovereign debt, as well as the introduction of sanctions on state banks. It seems to US that the systemic effect of these two bills on the macroeconomy, on the Russian situation may be strong enough," said Vartapetov.

At the same time, the rating Agency believes that the negative effect will be experienced not only by the Russian economy, but also by international investors who invested in Russian financial assets.

Karapetov recalled that following the Agency's sovereign rating of the Russian Federation to be held in January 2019. "There we continue to point out that the tightening of international sanctions is an important negative trigger. In particular, we mention sanctions on state energy companies, " he said.

At the same time, the rating Agency keeps the forecast for Russia's GDP growth for 2018 at 1.8%, in 2019 the dynamics of economic growth will slow down to 1.7%.