30.01.2024, 14:14
Eine Einschätzung zu den Sanktionen, und eine, die die Ambivalenz von diesen und den Auswirkungen umzeichnet. Kurzfristig war und ist die Wirkung sehr bescheiden, langfristig gesehen - wobei hier die geradezu bizarre Förderung der Rüstung in Russland mit hinein wirkt - sind die Prognosen indessen weniger gut.
Schneemann
Zitat:Russia boasts it is beating sanctions, but its longer-term prospects are bleakhttps://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/29/europ...index.html
CNN — Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken to gloating about Russia’s resistance to international sanctions and its supposed economic resilience, despite the best efforts of the United States and its G7 partners to choke off Moscow’s oil revenues and starve it of military technology.
Scoffing at Europe’s economies, Putin said at a recent event: “We have growth, and they have decline… They all have problems through the roof, not even comparable to our problems.” [...] Russia has adapted to the wide range of sanctions imposed by Western nations. Far from buckling under their weight, the Russian economy is in fact 1% larger than it was on the eve of the invasion. But the longer-term outlook is far less rosy. War is distorting the economy and sucking resources into military production at an unsustainable pace. [...]
But sanctions take time to have an effect. There are still plenty of customers for what Russia does best – selling oil and other commodities. Much of Asia has not signed up to sanctions, providing Russia with ready markets for its oil, as well as with high-technology equipment once bought from the West. India and China now account for 90% of Russian oil exports, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. [...]
Western officials are looking at ways to tackle this evasion. In October, the US Treasury Department sanctioned companies registered in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates for carrying Russian crude sold above the price cap. [....]
A Financial Times analysis of official Russian data found that, as access to precision tools from the West has been closed off, Russia increased imports of advanced machine tools known as computer numerical control (CNC) from China tenfold. Taiwanese and South Korean enterprises have also sold such tools, which can be used in military industries, the FT found. [...]
It’s a painstaking process, but it raises the costs to Russia. “Sanctions have restricted the access of Russia’s military industry to sophisticated technology and Russia has been forced to pay a premium for substitutes from other markets,” the Bank of Finland says in a recent report. It estimates that the cost to Russia of Chinese goods useful to its war effort rose 78% from 2021 to 2023. [...]
Some sanctions are already having an impact on consumers. The Russian airline S7 said in December that about 20% of its aircraft grounded because their US-made engines cannot be repaired, leading to fewer flights and staff cuts.
Sanctions will have a long-term impact on the Russian economy, according to the European Commission. In an assessment published in mid-2023, the European Union’s executive arm said the effects “will further intensify over time, as the measures have a structural, long-term impact on Russia’s budget, financial markets, foreign investment and its industrial and technological base.” [...]
The cost of the war in Ukraine is already having a profound effect. Russia is likely to devote a staggering 40% of its budget to the military in 2024 – 8% of national income. Sectors like education and healthcare suffer accordingly as more resources are poured into the war effort.
The Bank of Finland says the economic growth touted by Putin is coming from “relatively low-technology branches such as manufacturing of fabricated metals, where Russia is less reliant on imports and thereby less affected by Western sanctions.” “The current focus on military production has diverted resources from Russia’s civilian industries, making it more difficult to rely on branches that typically form the backbone of advanced economies to provide long-term growth.” [...]
Officially, inflation is at about 7%, but the head of Russia’s central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, suggested in December that it was rising again, stoked by cash hand-outs to soldiers and their families as well as high consumer borrowing. In September 2023, consumer borrowing for subsidized mortgages was nearly 50% higher than a year earlier. [...]
These problems are exacerbated by a chronic skills shortage caused by the human cost of the war and the emigration of tens of thousands of young professionals. According to staffing agencies, more than 80% of Russian companies are struggling to find and retain skilled workers. That in turn has reduced productivity.
Schneemann