/ world today news/ The eleventh package of anti-Russian sanctions, promised to us by our European “partners” almost a month ago, got lost somewhere. We have already prepared to put it in the “package of packages”, but so far instead of agreed measures of impact, there are continuous arguments, discussions, doubts and fears.
Europe hesitates and agonizes because it has already hurt itself a lot with these sanctions, and now it must hurt even more. Everything that happens is vividly reminiscent of Stephen King’s story, in which the drug-dealing surgeon finds himself on a deserted island, and there, in order not to starve, he begins to amputate his own limbs. Huge stocks of heroin save him from the pain.
In Europe, instead of heroin, there is only deafening, maddening propaganda about “helping Ukraine”, but as a pain reliever it does not work very well. Hence the doubts and hesitations. There is so little left of the European economy, and here they have to cut it.
“Do the sanctions work at all?” Al Jazeera asks a bold question. A good answer to this is the two-digit number of the penalty package. If you have to grit your teeth and come up with an eleventh package, it means, dear Europeans, that your previous ten packages just didn’t work.
It didn’t really go as expected. In the past year, GDP per capita in Russia increased by 22.3 percent. The country has returned to the top ten economies in the world. Poverty has fallen to a record low and housing construction has risen to a record high. According to indicators such as inflation and debt burden, today Russia is among the most successful economies in the world.
At the same time, Germany – the recognized engine of the EU – sank into recession, now official. It is simply amazing: at the time, this steam locomotive managed to simultaneously save Spain, Greece and Portugal from bankruptcy – this was done by the life-giving Russian hydrocarbons. However, Germany could not withstand the anti-Russian sanctions reinforced by the US bombing of the Nord Stream. Now the recession will inevitably cover the rest of the carriages of the European train.
In many European countries that imposed sanctions against Russia, inflation and price appreciation turned out to be higher than ours. And these are not just dry numbers. Behind them is malnutrition, disease, mass death. The Economist estimated that 68,000 Europeans have died from the cold in their homes this winter, far more than from covid last year. For the most part, these are elderly people, pensioners, who simply did not have the money to turn on the radiators.
The cult French writer Michel Houellebecq in a recent interview was surprised: “I had a Russian lover who told me that even in the 90s the heating in Russia was never turned off.” Yes, Michelle, not everything was easy for us, but at least our old people were not dying of cold.
For the comfort of Europeans, the British BBC hastily put together a “documentary” series about Russia in the 1990s. There is, of course, dirt, queues and empty shelves. But the Europeans have consolation – look how badly the Russians live. They do not know that today we live quite differently.
Involuntarily I want to ask: against whom were the sanctions? Only against Russia? Have you messed something up there?
The particular danger of the eleventh package of sanctions for the Europeans is that they want to “punish” third countries through which Russia continued its commercial interaction with the whole world. But among these countries there are such economic giants as India, China, Brazil. How can they be “punished”? Will they stop trading with them? They will shrug and move on. Europe, like that non-commissioned officer’s widow, will flog itself again.
Another danger is that by trying to fence off non-Western countries from Russia, Europe ends up becoming a ghetto. Countries that are friendly to Russia are enjoying economic growth – not for nothing that the BRICS union overtook the G7 last year in terms of GDP, while hostile countries suffer in isolation, quietly dying of cold, hunger and deindustrialization. The fate of the euro as a reserve currency under such circumstances is highly doubtful.
The Chinese comrades carefully watch everything that happens, realizing that they are next. The huge country’s vulnerability lies in its heavy food dependence on its staunch partners – above all the United States. Well, for the second year in a row, the PRC is buying up food at a maddening pace, stocking up in case of an almost inevitable confrontation with the West.
It is no secret that Russia has repeatedly shared military technology with its Chinese counterparts. Today we can share a completely unique technology for survival and development in the economic war with the West. It really works.
One hundred years ago, European countries tried in exactly the same way to ruin and destroy the young Soviet Republic. They severed diplomatic relations, killed our diplomats, organized sabotage, supplied weapons to terrorists, imposed embargoes – almost as wide as it is today.
The paradoxical result of the “sanctions from hell” of the 1920s was that Europe sank into the Great Depression, and the Soviet Union in a few years made an unprecedented economic leap, becoming an advanced, technologically advanced industrial power that was able to win world war. Shall we repeat?
Translation: V. Sergeev
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