Josep Borrell says the West needs to be patient and Russia will be isolated
Russia hit 'hard'
On Friday, Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told DW that sanctions are hitting Russia “hard.”
“The Russian economy is decreasing by 10%,” Borrell said. “They will suffer the biggest recession since the World War or the end of the Soviet Union.” He acknowledged that the European Union remains dependent on energy supplies from Russia, but said that would change in the coming months. EU member states are still buying gas from Russia, he said, “but we have reduced to half the amount of imports — we cannot do miracles.” He said the Kremlin could no longer use the income to shop in the European Union, meaning that EU technology for Russian tanks was now off limits. “They have the money,” he said, “but they cannot buy anything.”
Russia 'suffering massively'
Julian Hinz, from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, said trade statistics showed that the sanctions have worked. “The Russian economy is suffering massively under these sanctions — way more than the European economies are,” he said. “There’s really just no comparison.”
Hinz said it would be difficult for Russia to produce domestic alternatives to imported goods because the national industry needed preliminary products and technical know-how from abroad. He said the Kremlin would struggle to find buyers for the oil and gas no that are longer going to the EU and the US. “The pipelines are not there,” Hinz said. “There’s some pipeline capacity going to China, but that is just roughly about 10% of what could be sent to Europe at the same time. None of that, in terms of capacity, is able to replace the pipeline capacity going to Europe.”
Borrell said Russia would end up isolated. “A modern economy cannot work if the link with the rest [of the] economic powers, technological powers is cut. This will damage the Russian economy a lot — not tomorrow: The war will continue, unhappily continue. But the economy will suffer a lot.”
“Putin has to choose if he wants to have guns or wants to have butter for his people,” Borrell said. “I know he does not care much about his people.”
