According to Evgeny Chichvarkin, Western sanctions have strengthened the Putin regime and made it more independent.
A well-known British businessman of Russian origin and critic of the Putin regime Evgeny Chichvarkin believes that Western sanctions against Russia not only did not achieve their goal, but led to the exact opposite of the intended result.
He spoke about this in an interview with BILD.
Chichvarkin believes that after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the first thing the West should have done was to deprive the aggressor of the influx of currency.
“To deprive Russia of cash, namely to deprive the [Putin's – ed.] regime of currency. This regime cannot exist without currency. Without huge foreign exchange earnings, the Putin regime does not exist. It can neither exist, nor fight, nor operate , neither motivate nor send soldiers to war – he is completely dependent on foreign exchange earnings. It had to be cut off immediately, no matter how expensive and painful it would be,” said the businessman. Chichvarkin called the second mistake of the West indecision and fear of refusing to purchase Russian energy resources. The businessman is confident that total sanctions are needed in this area.
“A ban on the purchase of all energy resources from Russia, total secondary sanctions everywhere. A ban on payment, a ban on freight, a ban on insuring this freight, blocking all gas and oil pipelines, no matter how expensive it may be, no matter what stress it may cause in countries. No big deal. In 9 months, step-down stations were built in Germany, they didn't fall apart. And they can still be adjusted further,” the entrepreneur is sure.
At the same time, he considers the policy of “collective responsibility” of all people with a Russian passport to be wrong.
“People need to be released, and private money needs to be released, and people need to be allowed to open accounts in the West, and temporarily extend work visas for six months until the war ends. And any number of people need to be allowed into Europe. Those who can't, wouldn't go. Those who can speak English, who can open something, who know how to work, and so on, would go. Europe would accept 300-400 thousand, and that's it – they wouldn't be able to function as a state any longer,” Chichvarkin is sure.
The businessman noted with regret that Western governments “did everything exactly the opposite.”
“[Western sanctions – ed.] strengthened the regime, really created the world's second army, despite the fact that it was not. The independent, strong Putin regime was created by 14 packages of Western sanctions of idiotic Russophobia and a war with the Russians who left, and not with one single Russian who sent them to this war,” he is sure.
Chichvarkin believes that the West is introducing all these sanctions against Russia in order to please its voters.
“It's easier to fight with Russians who left than with Putin, his army and nuclear warheads. And it's very easy, convenient, and effective to fight with us – close an account, revoke a loan, not extend a visa or not give a visa, take away a car, a boat, a plane, take away a helicopter or a beautiful house. All this helps to overthrow Putin, right?” – he said.
According to Chichvarkin, 14 packages of sanctions over two years of war are not much different from each other, and Putin's regime is only getting stronger, as evidenced by the growth of Russia's GDP.
At the same time, the businessman is confident that the nominal sanctions lists of those who in some way support the war can even be expanded. But he considers the blanket punishment of people based on their nationality or the presence of a Russian passport unacceptable.
Let us recall who was included in the list of the fourteenth package of EU sanctions against the Russian Federation. We are talking about restrictions on companies, individual politicians and their relatives.
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