Western Sanctions Doomed To Failure

By Rhod Mackenzie

As you are all aware the US imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 in response to the Crimea deciding after a referendum to unite with the mother land of  Russia. The EU followed the example of the US like the good vassals they are.Over he Crimea they declared than the referendum was illegal and that the Crimeans had not right to decide their future which just illustrated the US/EU hypocrisy when they allowed and then recognised Kosovo's independence from Serbia without even a referendum.

The initial sanctions targeted a few banks, so oil and gas technology but not much else as they were more symbolic than designed to really hurt Russia. Although Russia 's counter measures to the EU really did have an impact on the member countries the measures included a ban on the import of all food stuffs and agricultaural products which really hit the producers in various countries very hard and has cost them over 500 billion since 2014 and that includes, French and Italian cheeses,Danish Pork,Spanish fruit and veg,plus cooked meats etc. Plus Russian producers benefited form investment into import substitution.

The bulk of the sanctions were introduced in February 2022 in response to Russia's special military operation in the Ukraine. The sanctions were wide ranging and covered everything from the banking to the energy sector and all points in between. For example the Visa and Mastercard systems ceased to work in Russia as the companies stopped servicing the system with Russian banks. The majority of banks themselves were then excluded from the SWIFT ( The Society for World Wide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) which is supposes to be a cooperative owned by its members but actually works as a blunt instrument of US foreign policy. It goes along with cutting countries off from its system as it has done previously at the behest of the US to Iran and Venezuela and now to Russia.
Now these sanctions  so called 'Shock and Awe  introduced against the Russian banking system was designed to destroy the Russian economy, indeed the US President Joe Biden predicted that the 'Ruble would be Rubble ' The head of the EU Ursula Von de Lyon said the Russian economy would be in tatters and the country would be brought to its knees Putin would resign and the West would have its regime change.
So what actually happened and why did the sanctions fail?
Well the first reason the sanctions failed is the same reason they allways fail the never take into account the real world, Sanctions are always great in theory, like we are going to stop Russia doing dollar transctions using swift but they do not take into account that other countries that are not vassals of the US like the EU  will not join the sanctions. Unless everybody joins the sanctions then they are doomed to failure and that is what we say with the US sanctions. By almost every measure and bencmark the sanctions against Russia have been an abject failure and far from damaging Russia they have had a devastating effect on the countries of the European Union. In the last two years the economies of the EU have tanked as they have been hit by rising energy costs, high inflation and a dramatic drop in their GDP in fact while Russia enjoys economic growth most EU economies are in recession particularly German which was a major trading partner of Russia in the pre sanctions days.

What the US when they were formulating their sanctions did not take into account is that attempting to sanction the largest country in the world which is a major producer of oil, gas, wheat and a huge list of other much needed commodities in world markets was never going to work.
Particularly when its major trading partners like China and India were not on board with the sanctions and when the US introduced its nonsensical oil price cap they were not going to follow it. In fact those who did ended up buying Russian oil from countries who did not at higher prices.
The problem with those in the US who formulate the sanctions policy is they have almost no experience of the real world of commerce and trade or who it actually works so they introduce measures that are ill concieved and actually back fire on those who imposed them. Plus once it becomes obvious that the sanctions are not working they take to threatening other counties with sanctions for not complying with theirs.It seems that is not working very well either as countries like, China and India have just ignored the threats
In the years following  2014  and before the the special military operation in Ukraine started in 2022 Russia had embarked on a major drive for import substitution to make sure it was not dependent on particularly the West for key parts of the economy so that in the event of major sanctions the country would be ready.
It had created an internal card payments system called MIR which was immediately able to replace inside Russia the loss of the Visa and mastercard and now many other countries are now using it.
On  financial most Russian banks were not exposed to the Western Financial Markets  so being cut off from the dollar/euro was not such a big deal. Plus it was easy to organise the programme of parralel imports where goods would come from the source country and delivered by third party countries with Turkey, Kazakhstan,Uzbekistan and others.
               
When the London Bullion Market Association decided to suspend Russian companies from their good delivery status did they really expect that Russia would not be able to sell their gold on the World market? I mean gold is one of the most valuable commodities on earth has no DNA and is extremely liquid in the sense of buying and selling so all the Russians did was sell their Gold on the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange or to Hong Kong and China were buyers were waiting.It was the same when the London metals exchange exluded Russian nickel, copper and alluminium  all the Russia producers did was go direct to the end users and deal with them.

Oil is the funniest of all as India is one of the world's largest oil refiners yet only uses around 30% of its production so is a major exporter of oil products such as diesel and petrol. Once the EU decided it did not want to purchase Russia oil products then India could supply them with what they were lacking but at a large mark up and both Russia and India make money. The Indians are even selling products from refined Russian oil to the USA , you could not make it up.
So there you have it the sanctions have failed because the were thougth up by people who don't understand business and commerce and were driven by Russaphobia and not rational thought