Empty shelves in Russia caused by sanctions panic/GettyImages
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the entire civilized world has begun an economic blockade of the terrorist country, and it has reached unprecedented proportions.
List of sanctions against Russia 2022
Maximum weakening of the Russian economy is an important task during the war in order to reduce the funding of military aggression. Since the early days of the war over the past month, most of the developed world has imposed unprecedented sanctions against Russia, designed to weaken its economy and cause payments to collapse and default.
Russia has become the world record holder in terms of sanctions imposed against it – almost six thousand, and this number is constantly growing. In terms of the number of sanctions against individuals and legal entities, Russia has overtaken Iran, Syria and North Korea. Such measures are compared with a “financial nuclear war”, but still they are not enough – the country's economy is powerful enough to collapse in one month.
Let's recall which sanctions against Russia turned out to be the most effective.
< h2 class="news-subtitle cke-markup">Finance
The most serious step for the Russian state was the freezing of state assets and shares in the accounts of foreign banks. And these are really huge amounts, which amounted to two-thirds of the previously available funds of the gas station state – that is, about 300 – 400 billion dollars. Along with the currency, the leading states in the financial sector have banned transactions with Russian gold.
International payment systems Visa and Mastercard stopped serving Russian customers, so that the Russians can no longer use the funds they have abroad. The SWIFT interbank settlement system is disabled for many Russian banks, although not for all. Western Union and Pay Pal currency transfer systems do not work either.
Personal Sanctions
In the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia, they blocked all funds that were available to officials of the aggressor state – primarily those close to Putin, members of parliament, ministers and security forces. The Russian oligarchs were also unlucky – the developed countries where they had business and real estate began to confiscate houses, yachts and funds in banks in unison. Then the turn came even to unofficial wives, mistresses and illegitimate children of the Russian “elite”. In general, personal sanctions affect about a thousand influential Russians.
The 156-meter yacht of the Russian billionaire Usmanov/EPA photo
< h2 class="news-subtitle cke-markup">Information counteraction
As it turned out, Russian propaganda channels spread their networks all over the world. TV channels worked in the USA, Germany and France, poisoned with propaganda around the world from YouTube and social networks. Therefore, blocking this lie turned out to be an important step in the sanctions.
First, the event blocked the breeding ground of hate by banning Russian television, and then YouTube, Facebook and Instagram started blocking untruthful resources. Everything ended predictably – the Russian authorities themselves closed the access of their citizens to the largest social networks. And at the same time – and to the opportunity to earn money in them for active bloggers. YouTube, Twitter, Telegram are still available in Russia, but for how long?150 companies completely close their business in Russia, another 178 restrict it, writes Fortune. Another 74 companies are reducing their operations in the Russian Federation and/or investments in the country. A total of 328 international companies have stopped or significantly restricted business. The international rating agency Fitch cancels the ratings of Russian companies and their subsidiaries that are under EU sanctions. There are now more than three hundred of them.
Refusal of international trade
It has become unprofitable and very difficult to trade with Russia. Most countries have abolished the maximum trade facilitation regime, raised duties to 30%, or introduced additional taxes on transactions from the aggressor state. The United States and Europe have banned trade in any goods in the field of weapons, high technology and expensive consumer goods. They won't even bring fish and caviar from Russia.
Transport blockade
Russia is experiencing huge problems with the delivery of goods in almost all directions. The largest container carrier Maersk refused to work with a terrorist country, and many ports do not want to accept and serve Russian ships. The owners of aircraft operating Russian airlines under leasing demand the return of the aircraft and have stopped servicing them. At the same time, the Russians practically stole these planes, but because of this, they will not be able to fly to civilized countries. Several countries still support Moscow's international communication with the world, but there are too few of them in unpopular directions. All these flights are clogged with Russians who are fleeing the country en masse.
Ukrainians and Poles block trucks carrying goods to Russia/Photo Censor
Road transport in the direction of Europe is also blocked – the activists blocked the checkpoints in Poland through Belarus, where huge queues formed. Even China has excluded Russia as a transit – now it sends its goods to Europe and the Middle East exclusively by sea. “Row the oars” will soon be the only way for Russians to transport something to the civilized world.
Cultural and sports blockade
No sane person wants to compete or listen to the singing of people involved in the massacre of the civilian population of a neighboring state. Therefore, almost all sports federations have excluded Russians from their ranks, and international sports competitions do just fine without the aquafresh flag. Stages of football, Formula 1 or swimming competitions in Russia have already been cancelled. And football players and artists who worked in foreign clubs or theaters are fired and expelled.
In Russia, you can no longer watch world cinema, you can’t play video games – access to streaming services and gaming platforms is closed, film distributors will not show new products in cinemas. Russians are not welcome anywhere else, even if they don't seem to be involved in the aggression.
Rejection of raw materials from Russia is proceeding, but slowly – gas exports from Russia during 2022 to the EU may fall twice. The good news is that the leaders of the oil and gas business in the world, which ensure the extraction of hydrocarbons, have already ceased to cooperate with the terrorist state. Therefore, they will definitely not be able to increase production volumes on 1/5 of the land.
