“Today, I am announcing a series of measures that will increase the price to pay for Russia and for those responsible for what is happening in Ukraine. “Joe Biden? No, Barack Obama, March 17, 2014, following the annexation of Crimea by Vladimir Putin. Eight years later, and while the leader of the Kremlin threatens – once more and once more – to invade the former Soviet republic, his successor in the White House promises him, in turn, punishments “as he has never seen”.
“Foreign enemy”
Bis repetita, and always the same question: are these sanctions dissuasive? “Since their establishment, 720 Russian officials and businessmen have been affected, lists Russian economist Vladislav Inozemtsev. These measures have cost the country 1.5 to 2 percentage points of GDP per year, or nearly 100 billion dollars. dollars. Yet their effect has been relatively insignificant. ” In fact, they did not end the war in Donbass.
Admittedly, the standard of living has fallen in Russia – between 2 and 5% per year since 2014. “But Putin remains rather indifferent to the fate of his population, notes the historian Françoise Thom. The most important, for him, is that the enormous financial reserves at its disposal allow it to pay the siloviki [forces de sécurité]. “By the way, he blames the decline in purchasing power on” the foreign enemy “…
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Nuclear option
For several weeks, Washington has been threatening to disconnect Russia from the Swift global payment system. A “nuclear option” that would bring Moscow back to the financial stone age. In reality, “this cut is almost improbable, continues Vladislav Inozemtsev. In Iran, where it has been applied, only a few banks have been disconnected.” And that did not prevent them from carrying out transactions, in particular by using bitcoin. In fact, the emergence of digital currencies, which allows targeted countries to escape the traditional financial system, increasingly weakens the impact of economic sanctions.
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Cutting off the Russian gas tap seems just as illusory, at least for Europe, which imports more than 40% of its needs from Siberia. So what to do? For Vladislav Inozemtsev, there would be a lever: “Remove the three million long-term visas and residence permits possessed by Russian citizens, force them to close their European and American accounts and sell their real estate. The anger would be such. that it would put Putin’s regime in jeopardy. As long as we only target bureaucrats and oligarchs, nothing will change. ” But are the West ready for this?
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