The United States, European Union, Canada, Australia, and Japan announced the fact of toughening sanctions against Russia. In particular, the EU sanctions include embargo on supplying weapon to Russia and purchasing Russian weapons, the supply of energy carriers and mining exploration technology to Russia is prohibited, and the access of some Russian banks to European banking markets will be closed, too. The United States, in fact, has warned our country that the transactions with “Rosneft”, “Gazprombank” and VTB could be risky.
Some Western analysts, however, believe that especially the “bank” sanctions could harm not only Russian, but also Western banks. There is no, let’s say, London’s “City” Monopoly here and the Russian financial capital can find new resources, such as in China, and the Western Banks will suffer by losing a major partner.
So, if Russia will be able to withstand the sanctions and the country’s citizens’ lives will not be sharply deteriorated as a result, then the West will achieve the opposite effect, and the Russian’s cult of Putin will only be strengthened, “they beat us (to put it mildly), but we become stronger”, a well-known formula.
But even if a very severe damage is cause to Russia’s economy, would the sanctions reach their goal? Why should deterioration of economic situation compel Putin to stop arming the rebels tomorrow or the next day, who are waging a war in the eastern part of Ukraine, and not to send heavy equipment and Russian military specialists there? If this is the goal, then the authors of economic sanctions should clearly realize that they simply got down to a hopeless business. Not allowing officials and politicians to the West are not serious steps; they play purely a symbolic role. In the course of its history and in more miserable conditions, Russia continued cherishing the imperial illusions, and even now, it will not give up on it. It’s another matter if the war and, accordingly, the sanctions last, let’s say, for 10 years, and the West also finds means to drop the price of oil. In that case, in other words, having much longer-lasting historical period in front of us, then unpleasant, and of course unfavorable for us processes may begin in Russia.
Read also
Similar sanctions are applied against Iran since 1979. And only last year, they began to produce certain results.
ARAM ABRAHAMAYAN
