RUSSIA. At a time when the Russian invasion of Ukraine is progressing, the European Union, on the offensive, is increasing joint sanctions against the Kremlin. But will they be enough to curb Vladimir Putin?
Since Thursday March 24, the European Union has enacted several waves of sanctions against Russia in response to its military aggression in Ukraine. Whether economic, sporting or geostrategic, they all have the political end of increasing Russian isolation and ultimately of forcing Vladimir Putin’s regime to end the war.
Sanctions with economic impact
Reactive, the 27 decided to freeze the reserves of the Russian Central Bank placed in the European Union to block any transaction or repatriation of these liquidities to Russia. An unprecedented action when we know that the total amount of these assets is estimated at more than 600 billion, as recalled Release. The holding or freezing of Russian financial assets in the EU also affects senior military officers. Without forgetting the oligarchs, in particular the 488 Russian nationals in the sights of several hundred European officials, as explained West France. From Europe, the hunt for personalities is therefore underway, even targeting Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister and Mr. Putin. As a staunch ally, the United States is following the trend by freezing the assets of the Russian Central Bank and asking its Mastercard and Visa companies to block their credit card and payment services to Russian banks. In addition to the slowdown in financial transactions, the West has taken note of the suspension of exports of crucial technologies such as software or electronic components to Russia, following the example of Canada which blocked export permits in the aerospace sectors, mining and information technology. These permits were equivalent to 487 million euros.
However, the measures will not be made effective instantly: like the exclusion of Russian institutions from the SWIFT financial information transmission network which is in progress, the blocking of Russian operations may take some time. Regardless of the delay, one thing is certain in Europe: Russia is gradually being banned from financial markets and transactions, in addition to being hampered in its trade. With banks cut off from SWIFT for example, the slowdown in gas and oil supplies from Russia will be such that Russian GDP can be expected to lose around 7%, analyze the echoes. Moreover, the results came quickly: during the summit in extraordinary session bringing together the G7 finance ministers on 1er March, they welcomed the effects of their sanctions, as detailed another article from the same newspaper. The consequences were such that the Moscow Stock Exchange announced its closure until March 5, too weakened by the fall of the ruble on the foreign exchange markets (-30% against the dollar at the end of February) and the increase in its key rate (+20% at the end of February).
Sports penalties
Monday February 28 was a tough day for a Russia already weakened by theUEFA announcement February 25 of the trip to the Champions League final scheduled for May 28 from the Krestovski stadium in Saint Petersburg to the Stade de France. After Fifa’s historic decision to exclude Russia from the FIFA World Cup, the International Olympic Committee has also aligned itself with the European strategy of isolating Russia by deciding to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from competitions in a official recommendation. As to International Paralympic Committee, he finally decided, on March 3, to exclude Russian and Belarusian Paralympic athletes from the Beijing Para Winter Games starting the next day. The disavowal of the sporting world is a blow for Vladimir Putin who has invested a lot to expand his soft-power, in particular by organizing planetary sporting events such as the World Cup-18 and the Sochi Olympics in 2014, as explained France 24.
On the media side, the Russians RT and Sputnik are suspended from the European zone by social networks. Many people have already acted on this ban, like Facebook, TikTok or Twitter. These sanctions follow the speech that Ursula Von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, gave during a press conference on February 27, and broadcast by France 24. In particular, she indicated that Europe should “ban the Kremlin’s media machine”. She does not hide it, the objective is thus to prevent the Russian state media from “spreading their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our union”. If the Russian media try to respond, indignant, like RT France, of a “violation of the rule of law” by these measures going “against the principles of freedom of expression” (in an article published on its site), European firmness is bearing fruit: in fact, even Twitter, which was slow to rally to the blockade of the Russian media, announced on March 3 that the mention “restricted access account” would be displayed on the screens of those still trying to consult RT and Sputnik. The joint decision of the European Union on the prohibition of the diffusion of the contents of these Russian media on the social networks entered into force the same day (to be found on the official journal of the EU).
What impact on the Russian population?
While more than 836,000 people are fleeing the Russian invasion in Ukraine and flocking to neighboring countries, increasing the numbers of displaced people every day “exponentially” – according to a census by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees published on Wednesday March 2-, on the other hand, the situation of the Russian people is hardly enviable. Direct consequences of all these economic sanctions, the currency is in free fall, interest rates are soaring, stock markets are closing. And above all, the store shelves, emptied, and the queues in front of banks on the verge of bankruptcy, lengthened, paint a very sad picture. The power of Mr. Putin will thus not be the only thing to be shaken: it is also the daily life of “ordinary” Russians who will be upset, as acknowledged by the French Minister of the Economy Bruno le Maire during his his fiery intervention on the set of FranceInfo on March 1: “The Russian people will also pay the consequences“.
Sanctions with geostrategic impact
If Joe Biden was quick to underline Moscow’s isolation by calling Vladimir Putin a “dictator” during his first state of the union speech on March 1, the Kremlin does not blink. He says he has prepared for such an eventuality, as Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, says: “To make this emotional period as short-lived as possible, all the necessary measures have been taken”. Even the Russian central bank responds recklessly to destabilizing sanctions, claiming to have “clear action plans for any scenario”. But in order not to become a pariah, to whom could Russia turn?
As Europe no longer wants to rely on Russia to meet its energy needs, Vladimir Putin will have to think about how to redirect its Russian exports of natural gas, oil and coal. And why not to Asia? In fact, India and China refrained from condemning Russia for the military invasion of Ukraine during the vote on the resolution at the UN Security Council, China preferring the second version of February 25. , more lenient towards Russia, “deploring” only the aggression against Ukraine. Shortly before, during the meeting between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on February 4, the common interests and the market to follow against the “free world” had moreover been reaffirmed. In a period of convergence of Western countries to stand up to Russia, this displayed neutrality of Asia is a good sign for Moscow, as explained by The gallery. If Russia today meets 20% of China’s natural gas needs and 30% of its oil imports, it is thanks to growing investments, in particular with the 420 billion m3 delivered to China in 2020 against 170 billion in 2013. A rapprochement between the two powers would also appear beneficial geopolitically for a China – which dreams of a major reunification of the islands of Hong Kong and Taiwan – and a diplomatically isolated Russia.
However, this union remains for the moment of the order of the eventuality. If Beijing had affirmed to “understand the legitimate concerns” of Moscow during a call on February 24 between Wang Yi, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs and his counterpart Sergei Lavrov (press conference issued by China), the head of Chinese diplomacy Wang Yi expressed, on March 2, his “deep regret” about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict during a call with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kouleba reported by public television CCTV. This ambiguity of the Chinese position vis-à-vis the current war can be explained by several factors. For a Xi Jinping who prioritizes the rhetoric of national unity, secession is a big threat. China cannot therefore fully approve the recognition of independence proclaimed on February 21 by Mr. Putin of the territories of Donbass, Donetsk and Lugansk, in which case it would extend the pole of autonomy to the Chinese territories and provinces with separatist ambitions. such as Tibet or Xinjiang. Thus, the Western declarations which castigate “separatism” in the Donbass are good news for Beijing which uses these terms all day long. Beyond the importance of words, there is that of figures: if China decides to support Russia to the detriment of Westerners who condemn it, the price to pay would be very high, bilateral trade between China and the EU representing 467 billion euros in 2020 and the EU being China’s largest trading partner. This link is above all one of interdependence, China also being the 2n/a economic partner of the EU, as detailed in the HuffPost.
Still undecided because torn between the two strategic poles that are the West and Russia, China is content for the moment to call for de-escalation in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in the words of Wang Wenbin, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 1er March.