The whirlwind of sanctions directed against Russia has intensified to such an extent that the fallout is being felt far beyond the government agencies involved in Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine. Oil prices have soared in anticipation of shortages, businesses have announced boycotts, athletes are being excluded from competitions, and some Russians are fleeing the country, losing the comforts to which they’ve become accustomed.
Moscow has lost access, at least for now, to $300 billion of its gold and foreign exchange reserves, and seven Russian banks have been disconnected from the SWIFT international payment system. The number of sanctions imposed on the country is unprecedented – 5,787 new restrictions have been imposed against Russian legal entities and individuals since February 22, and their number has reached more than 8,500 in total. No other country has ever had so many restrictions imposed on it. Even Iran, which has been under sanctions for more than 40 years, comes in a distant second, with only 3,600.
“This is financial nuclear war and the largest sanctions event in history. Russia went from being part of the global economy to the single largest target of global sanctions and a financial pariah in less than two weeks,” said Peter Piatetsky, a former official with the Ministry of Finance in the US administrations of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
This invites comparison between Iran’s sanctions history and the most recent anti-Russia measures. Although the position of these two countries in the global economy and politics is very different, there is apparent similarity in their present-day situation. For quite a long time, the Islamic Republic of Iran was the world’s most-sanctioned pariah country, cut off from a critically important income source – its energy supplies to Europe. There are rumors that some of the restrictions imposed on Iran could now be rolled back in order to curb Russian oil and gas supplies and avoid an energy crisis in the EU. These signals are integral to understanding what the West’s priorities are right now. Are we dealing with the principle here, according to which those responsible must be punished, or is this objective justice? These and other questions have been addressed by experts interviewed by RT.
Although there seems to be no panic so far, and demand for individual goods is growing, experts still fear the imminent onset of a severe economic crisis – not only in Russia but throughout the world. As part of the fifth package of sanctions, EU countries are contemplating a ban on importing Russian oil and gas, even though Russia provides EU countries with about 40 percent of their gas and 25 percent of their oil. Truckers in Spain are already coming out at rallies to protest rising fuel prices, and similar demonstrations may soon sweep across all of Europe.
In recent history, there’s been a case of a relatively important economic actor incurring a heavy sanctions regime that led to difficulties for the initiators of the restrictions themselves. Many now recall the experience of Iran, a veteran in the field of international isolation.
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