From: Roman Sheremeta—Russia is lying about its economic strength: sanctions are working and we need more.
EU finance ministers from Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the Netherlands claim that the “russian government is lying” about sanctions not impacting russian economy.
The first point to emphasize is that russia is lying, they always do. That is why relying on the data reported by russia itself (something that pro-russian advocates do) is just meaningless. But there are many other data sources that show us an accurate picture.
In reality, sanctions are working very well:
1) Russia’s national currency, the ruble, is very weak, which raises import prices and contributes to inflation.
2) The assets of the russian reserve have been cut in half since the beginning of the full-scale war.
3) Russia is investing mostly into the war, ignoring all other sectors. This is the strategy used in the USSR, and history shows that it is a bad strategy.
4) Russia has introduced bans on petrol and sugar exports to secure domestic supply and strict capital controls to prevent private funds from flowing out of the country. Despite this, billions of dollars are leaving russia.
5) The Yale School of Management has estimated that about 1,000 companies left russia. Some of the companies, like Siemens, have been on the russian market for more than 150 years, since Tsarist Russia. Now they are gone and will never return.
Sanctions against russia are working and they should be strengthened, especially in strategically important sectors like energy, finance, and technology. It is also essential to implement mirroring sanctions on Belarus and put more pressure on other major enablers of sanction circumvention in East Asia and the Middle East.
Voice of Ukraine 