Russia has threatened to take the US to the World Trade Organisation over sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis. If Moscow went ahead, it would be the first formal challenge to trade sanctions in the global trade body and add to friction between Russia and other members less than two years after it joined.

Russia’s frequent use of non-tariff trade barriers has fed disillusionment among other WTO members

“The WTO gives us some additional possibilities,” economy minister Alexei Ulyukaev told lawmakers in Moscow yesterday. “At the WTO council in Geneva we talked about the possibility of filing lawsuits against the US over the sanctions against Russian banks, and we hope to use the mechanism of the WTO to keep our partners in check regarding this issue.”