New US sanctions against Russia will further aggravate the situation in the South Caucasus. Experts assure that the tenser the US-Russia relations become, the more the situation aggravates in the region.
Expert of the PhD, Forbes, The National Interest and The American Thinker periodicals, Areg Galstyan stated, that the project of the US sanctions against Russia is unique, “In the past 20 years, the United States has not had a document that had such a great support in the US House of Representatives and the Senate. This legislative initiative has mainly domestic political motives. It has been six months that Trump is in the chair, but the sensations around his administration connected to the RF do not give way to, which decreases his rating. And it is not profitable for Tramp on the threshold of the 2018 elections. Trump has no guarantee that he will win in 2020. Therefore, the Republicans do all these also for their own interests”.
Stepan Grigoryan, head of the Centre for Globalization and Regional Studies, is convinced that the tenser the US-Russia relations become, the more political clashes in our region will increase.
In this context, Mr. Grigoryan also reminded the problems that arose after entering the EAEU. According to him, Russia will introduce new rules of the game through the EAEU to overcome sanctions, to protect its manufacturers. As an example, Stepan Grigoryan pointed out that, Russia made a change, and forbid our drivers to drive with their licenses. Or that Bagratashen villagers may not export more than five kilograms of food to Georgia: “It’s in Russia’s interest. He is responding to sanctions. And sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe against Russia lead to the fact that Russia may not use new technologies in the energy sector either. That is the main nail. China cannot give such new technologies to Russia. When working with Russia, the US and Europe made it necessary to ensure democracy, human rights protection, and Turkey and China do not make such terms”.
Vilen Khachatryan, assessing the impact of sanctions on the economic perspective, noted, that if any country increases the customs duty, the other applies the opposite step. Simply put, if someone slaps you, you slap back, and it turns into a fight. Sanctions have the same logic: “The sanctions against Russia make it change its policies. It has started to direct its diversification policy to Asia: to the Chinese and Indian markets. On the other hand, as far as sanctions are recurring in nature, Russia is beginning to adapt. This situation makes it necessary to carry out revisions in economy”.
In response to the question, whether the factor of European countries, particularly Germany, cannot play a role in the improvement of US-Russian relations, Mr Galstyan said, “The US gas is for several times more expensive for Europe than the Russian. But the US tells Europe to make concessions for a common partnership. In fact, Europe starts playing on several cords. Now, taking into account the economic interests, they have adopted another position, while they were the first to declare Russia as their enemy”.
Mr. Khachatryan also considered the factor of Iran and Qatar, which are gas giants, and noted, that the US does its best to break Russia’s relations with its energy partners, “The US hits those countries which have huge energy reserves, for variety of reasons. Two schemes are used: it either hits separate countries, or the whole world. Sanctions against Iran can have negative consequences for us. 25-30 percent of our trade circulation is made through Iran, that is, one of our gates, which is a solution for Armenia in case of economic risk situations. And we notice that it is being hit now. As well is our strategic partner, Russia. It turns out that Armenia is also in severe risks”.
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
