The sanctions imposed by the EU at the expense of Russia are of enormous importance for the development of the war. If they prove effective, they will limit funding for Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine. But if Putin manages to relax their application or bypass them, then the war will go on for a long time.
What about sanctions?
The general assessment is that the sanctions against Russia which the E.U. yield and lead to the medium- to long-term weakening of the Russian economy. It is characteristic that it is turning more and more towards China, turning the former superpower into an economic complement of the new rising superpower.
Therefore, we can say that the estimates of the Europeans that the Russian economy would collapse due to the sanctions turned out to be untrue. But this does not remove the importance of the sanctions, which are “gnawing away” at the foundations on which the Putin regime rests.
For example, the Russian automobile industry suffered a terrible blow, with the result that its production was drastically reduced. This is how the standard of living of the Russians is being degraded and the dissatisfaction with the war is slowly growing.
Hundreds of thousands of young Russians – many of them well-educated and with good career prospects – went abroad to avoid conscription. It is no coincidence that Prigozhin, head of the mercenary Wagner, warns the Kremlin that there may be an explosion of popular discontent if the sons of officials continue to avoid conscription in various ways, so as not to expose themselves to the dangers of the war in Ukraine.
The war appears to have entered an escalation phase with the Russians using all means, including the destruction of a massive dam, resulting in ecological destruction, in order to create additional obstacles to the Ukrainian counterattack.
For their part, Ukrainians are finding that the much-discussed counteroffensive is easy to describe but extremely difficult to execute. The Russians had the opportunity to build fortifications that make it difficult to counterattack while it is known that the attackers, i.e. the Ukrainian troops, will have multiple losses than the defenders, in this case the Russians who have occupied around 20% of Ukraine’s territories and they seem determined to keep them.
Therefore, we are going into a long-term match where the economic dimension can prove to be of decisive importance.
The E.U. has imposed sanctions with ten consecutive decisions and is in the phase of trying to draw the necessary conclusions from their application so far, in order to make them stricter and more effective.
The figures for 2022 are indeed impressive. The EU’s bilateral trade transactions of the “27” with Russia increased – according to Swedish estimates – by 4% compared to 2021.
This means that in 2022 Putin took more money from Europeans than in 2021, despite the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine in late February 2022. So instead of having a reduction in the financing of the Russian economy by the E.U. we had, in terms of commercial transactions, a small increase.
The performance of European countries is varied. For example, Sweden estimates that it has reduced trade with Russia by 80%, while the record for increased trade appears to be held by Hungary and Greece.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine worsened the energy crisis that was already in progress, and so the international prices of natural gas and oil caught fire. The Europeans, who had been following Merkel’s policy of increasing energy dependence on Russia, were caught off guard and for a time generously financed Putin’s war of aggression.
They then dramatically reduced their dependence on imported Russian gas and 2023 figures show a large drop in EU trade. and Russia.
