Economic war against russia with no ifs or buts. Only alternative is WW3 – Klymenko
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In recent months, the number of investigations by leading Western media into various schemes to circumvent sanctions against russia grew significantly, the co-founder and chief editor of the web portal blackseanews.net Andrii Klymenko wrote.
At the same time, the new US and EU sanction packages, which are expected in the coming days, will announce new measures. For the first time, the EU has included Chinese and Indian companies accused of supporting russia’s military-industrial complex in the new sanctions list. Sanctions are also being imposed on companies in Sri Lanka, Turkey, Thailand, Serbia, and Kazakhstan. There are now even criminal cases against the «schemers» in the US and the EU. And while all that is certainly good news … schemers will always be ahead of the government agencies that are trying to stop them.
We are certain that for each already sanctioned «shell company» there are dozens of registration applications for similar ones waiting to be filed or approved in the same or other countries. And we are certain that in the Western countries, there’ll always be reputable companies that will turn a blind eye to a few dubious transactions. Because this is business and «money does not stink.»
So what should we do? Below is a draft proposal by the Monitoring Group of the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies and BlackSeaNews. Join in!
- The main goal of the sanction policy should be clearly articulated as the maximum possible isolation of the russian economy. This is the only way that has no alternatives. Otherwise, the global world economy will always, and we repeat — always, find new technically legal schemes and loopholes to circumvent the sanctions.
- It’s certainly great when investigators find such schemes in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Georgia. But what will they do with China and Hong Kong? According to rough estimates, russia receives 80%, if not more, of the sanctioned goods from those places. The measures that can be taken are difficult even to think about. But what are they?
- We need to decisively cut off all — as in ALL — russian banks from the world economy. The Ambassador of Ukraine to the United States is absolutely right when she says that only a few dozen of more than 300 russian banks are currently under sanctions. And those sanctions should be imposed specifically by the United States, the UK and the EU, that is, countries with global banking currencies.
- The US, the UK and the EU should warn all — once again, ALL — banks in the world that if they finance ANY contracts/operations for the supply of goods to russia, those third-country banks, including those that have not imposed sanctions on russia, would be deprived of the option to work with the USD, EUR and GBP.
- It is necessary to immediately synchronize the legal entities sanctions lists — this list as of September 01, 2023, clearly shows that there is still a huge amount of work to be done in that area, especially in the EU. The problem, however, has a very simple solution — the automatic addition to the sanctions lists of the US, the EU, the UK, Canada, Ukraine and other countries of legal entities that are on the lists of at least one of these countries. Otherwise, the inspection of sanction dossiers can and will continue to last for years, since no growing staff numbers will be ever enough for such an overwhelming workload.
- The US and the EU should demand that the thousands — as in THOUSANDS — of American and European companies that continue to operate in russia immediately cease all operations there and stop paying any taxes to the russian budget. As a rule, the share of those companies’ profits from the russian sales does not exceed 2-5%, so they will survive and manage.
- Merchant ships owned by shipowners from countries that have imposed sanctions on the russian Federation should be prohibited from entering any russian ports and transporting any russian cargo.
- Ports and companies from countries that have imposed sanctions should be prohibited from accepting and/or servicing any vessels leaving russian ports.
If the goal of russia’s global economic isolation is clear, then the measures for achieving it also become clear. Note that the banks of China, Hong Kong, India, etc., are actually very, very afraid of the «secondary sanctions.» Yes, this is an economic war with no ifs or buts. But the only alternative is — a real WW3, not an economic one, that some say may be already underway. If we don’t act now, it will spread and widen…