Russia’s huge accumulated financial reserves and small foreign debt make it senseless for the West to strangle Moscow economically.
According to the newspaper Die Welt, the translation of the article in which the portal inosmi.ru published, if Western politicians who are seriously discussing the possibility of toughening economic sanctions against Russia take a close look at one important statistical indicator, they will have to think hard about the advisability of putting pressure on Moscow.
Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, even amid not very high oil prices and ongoing anti-Russian sanctions, recently set a new record, reaching $ 600 billion. President Vladimir Putin also managed in the financial sphere to prepare for a conflict with the West.
“Russia has the fifth-largest financial reserves in the world and the sixth-lowest government debt,” said Chris Weafer, strategist at Macro-Advisory, an independent consultancy. “The government is in a comfortable position, not too vulnerable geopolitically.”
The expert drew attention to the fact that unlike the three past financial crises (1998-2000, 2008-2010 and 2014-2016), the Russian economy has become significantly more stable, and there are no signs of panic.
“Russia’s stability is critically the result of Putin’s economic policies. Over the past two decades, he has demonstrated that he has a number of very important principles and beliefs in the economic sphere. One of these principles is the rejection of too large debts and the desire to build up financial reserves. This manifested itself back in 2002, when Putin supported the idea of then Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin to channel funds from the privatization of the Slavneft concern to create the current National Welfare Fund. At that time, this idea had many opponents, ” notes the author of the article, Holger Zschäpitz.
Another phenomenal success of Putin, experts consider the frame strategically the refusal of Russia from dollar savings in favor of increasing the volume of the country’s gold reserves.
“Thanks to the rise in gold prices, national reserves soared in value, reaching an all-time high of $ 600 billion in early August. This year alone, the state treasury received an additional 47 billion dollars, and the share of gold (taking into account the rise in prices for it) is about 38 billion, ” underlines Die Welt.
Thus, the thrifty policy of the Russian leadership ensured the stability of the country’s economy, and even during the crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic, the overall decline in economic indicators in Russia was not as significant as in the developed countries of the West.