by Victoria Nikiforova
[RIA] The eleventh package of anti-Russian sanctions promised to us by our European "partners" almost a month ago has been lost somewhere. We have already prepared to put it in a "package with packages", but so far, instead of agreed measures of influence, there are continuous disputes, discussions, doubts and fears.
Europe hesitates and hesitates, because it has already hurt itself very much with these sanctions, and now it needs to hurt even more. Everything that happens is vividly reminiscent of the story of Stephen King , in which a drug dealer surgeon finds himself on a desert island and there, in order not to die of hunger, begins to amputate his own limbs. Saves him from the pain of a giant supply of heroin.
In Europe, instead of heroin, there is only deafening, maddening propaganda about "aid to Ukraine", but as a painkiller it does not work very well. Hence the doubts and hesitations. There is so little left of the European economy, and here we still need to cut it off.
"Do sanctions work at all?" - Al Jazeera asks a bold question . A good answer to this is the two-digit number of the sanctions package. If you need to grit your teeth and come up with the eleventh package, this means, dear Europeans, that your previous ten packages stupidly did not work.
In fact, it didn't work as expected. Over the past year, GDP per capita in Russia increased by 22.3 percent. The country returned to the top ten largest economies in the world. Poverty has fallen at a record low, and housing construction has grown at a record high. According to indicators such as inflation and debt load, Russia today is among the most successful economies in the world.
At the same time, Germany - the recognized engine of the EU - plunged into a recession, now official. It is simply amazing: at one time, this steam locomotive managed to save Spain , Greece and Portugal from default at once - that's what life-giving Russian hydrocarbons did. However, Germany could not stand the anti-Russian sanctions, reinforced by the American undermining of the Nord Stream . Now the recession will inevitably cover other carriages of the European train.
In many European countries that imposed sanctions against Russia, inflation and price increases turned out to be higher than ours. And these are not just dry numbers. Behind them - malnutrition, disease, mass deaths. The Economist has calculated 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 enough money to turn on the batteries.
The cult French writer Michel Houellebecq is surprised in a recent interview : "I had a Russian mistress, so she told me that even in the 90s the heating in Russia was never turned off." Yes, Michel, everything was not easy for us, but at least our old people did not die from the cold.
As a consolation to the Europeans, the British BBC quickly put together a "documentary" series about Russia in the 90s. There, of course, there is sheer rubbish, queues and empty shelves. But Europeans have a consolation - look how badly the Russians live. They do not know that we live today is completely different.
Involuntarily, I want to ask: who were the sanctions against? Just against Russia? You didn't mix anything up there?
The particular danger of the eleventh package of sanctions for Europeans lies in the fact that they want to "punish" third countries through which Russia continued its trade interaction with the whole world. But among these countries are such economic giants as India , China , Brazil . How can they be "punished"? Stop trading with them? Well, they shrug their shoulders 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 driving itself into a ghetto. The states friendly to Russia enjoy economic growth - it is not for nothing that the BRICS union overtook the G7 last year in terms of GDP, while the unfriendly states suffer in isolation, quietly dying from cold, hunger and deindustrialization. The fate of the euro as a reserve currency in such circumstances is highly questionable.
The Chinese comrades are closely watching everything that happens, realizing that they are next in line. The vulnerability of a huge country in its great food dependence on its sworn partners - primarily on the United States . Well, for the second year in a row, the PRC has been buying food at a crazy 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. She really works.
A hundred years ago, European countries tried in exactly the same way to ruin and destroy the young Soviet Republic. They broke off diplomatic relations, killed our diplomats, staged sabotage, supplied weapons to terrorists, imposed an embargo - almost as comprehensive as it is today.
The paradoxical result of the "hellish sanctions" of the 1920s was that Europe plunged into the Great Depression, and the Soviet Union in a matter of years made an unprecedented economic leap, turning into an advanced, technologically advanced industrial power that managed to win the world war. Can we repeat?