Russia managed to accumulate about a third of its income from the sale of raw materials outside the country during the year of full-scale war, and this may be one of the directions for new Western sanctions.
This is reported Bloombergwrites “European truth“.
Economic analysts at Bloomberg suggest that these funds, totaling about $80 billion, are distributed in the form of cash deposits, real estate and investments in affiliated companies. It is probably this shadow reserve that helps the Kremlin to maintain finances in the face of sanctions.
Maria Shagina, an expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Britain, believes that due to the fact that Europe did not immediately apply sanctions against the energy sector of Russia, the Kremlin managed to accumulate one of the largest current account surpluses in recent history, and this actually leveled the effect of the asset freeze Central Bank.
Accumulating assets abroad over the past year, Russia received a replenishment equal to about 5% of GDP.
Such assets could potentially become the next target for sanctions, especially if they are directly linked to the state, and in Russia a significant proportion of many large commodity exporters are state-owned. However, even if Western countries succeed in identifying the owner of such assets and proving the connection for the application of sanctions, the proportion of assets found will clearly be less than these indicative estimates.
Read also: Why Russia is still making money selling energy resources and how to change it
