On Sunday, Moscow downplayed the importance of a ‘sweeping’ new round of more than 100 sanctions imposed by the U.S. over the war in Ukraine.
The Kremlin is saying Washington ‘shouldn’t hold its breath’ in pressuring the Kremlin to stop the offensive, further adding that ‘they will never defeat us.’
The IMF projections suggest it may indeed be the case, as Russia is expected to post bigger economic growth than its US and EU foes.
The sanctions target ‘Russian energy production and revenue, the metals and mining sectors, defense procurement, and those involved in supporting Moscow’s war effort’, according to a statement by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Politico reported:
“’Today’s actions demonstrate our further resolve in continuing to disrupt every link of [the] Russian military supply chain, and target outside actors who would seek to support Russia’s war effort’, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in the statement.”
The measures also target ‘seven Russia-based banks, an executive of one of those banks, and one Russia-based financial infrastructure entity’, it said.
But Moscow seemed unimpressed.
“Russia’s Foreign Ministry called the U.S. measures a continuation of an effort aimed at ‘inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow’. But the Biden administration ‘shouldn’t hold its breath’, ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the local media ‘sanctions create additional problems. But we have adjusted to the sanctions. We have learned to hedge against sanctions risks’.”
The U.S. Treasury intends to work with international partners ‘to prevent sanctions evasion and export-control violations’.
Reuters reported:
“Western leaders and Ukraine have repeatedly said they seek to defeat Russia on the battlefield, though some Western leaders have denied what President Vladimir Putin says is a Western plot to carve up Russia and steal its natural resources.
Putin is girding the $2.1 trillion economy for a long war and Western hopes of stoking a swift Russian economic crisis with some of the toughest sanctions ever imposed have not been realised. The International Monetary Fund forecasts Russian growth of 2.2% this year – faster than either the United States or the Euro area.”
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