In an interview with public television ARD, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that “in the event of an invasion of Ukraine”, “Russia would in principle be cut off from international financial markets”
She added that sanctions would also be imposed on exports to Russia of “all the goods it urgently needs to modernise and diversify its economy and where we are globally dominant and therefore there is no substitute for them”.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin said on 18 February 2022: “Sanctions will be imposed in any case. There is some reason today, let’s say related to the events in Ukraine, or there is no such reason – it will be found, because the goal is different, the goal is to stall the development, in this case of Russia and Belarus. While pursuing this goal, there will always be an excuse to introduce some kind of illegitimate restrictions, and this is nothing else but unfair competition”.
International financial markets are controlled by the West, so pushing Russia out of there would also mean our country’s withdrawal from Western financial control. And ways of paying for Russian energy resources will be found, as the West will not be able to abandon them completely.
As for the ban on complex imports to Russia, it will also hit Western manufacturers and will be a strong incentive for us to produce these products ourselves. Russia has the potential to do this. There will be some difficulties at first, but with time things will get better.
Elena Panina