Experts have decided on sanctions against the Russian Federation that will help stop the war in Ukraine

In the West, discussions continue about the sanctions that need to be imposed against Russia to stop its military actions in Ukraine.

The influential American newspaper The Washington Post published a column written by the vice president of the Brookings Institution, Benjamin Harris, and the director of the Hutchins Center for Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the institute, David Wessel. They named five scenarios that should contain Putin.

Experts summarize the discussion that took place at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday, where the five most effective sanctions strategies were formulated, quotes Channel “Crimean Wind”.

Make it easier for Russians to withdraw money abroad

The United States, the European Union and Switzerland should remove the obstacles they have created to withdraw money from Russia in an attempt to put pressure on the oligarchs, experts say. This should weaken the ruble and prompt the Central Bank to raise interest rates. As the former first deputy chairman of the board of the Central Bank, Sergei Aleksashenko, who participated in the discussion, calculated, if 100 thousand Russian families and small companies sent $10 thousand abroad every month, the damage to the Russian economy would be equal to the reduction in the price of oil by $7 per barrel.

Limit revenues from gas and fertilizers

Russia has refocused on selling gas to China, and now the West’s task is to prevent Moscow from selling it, says Janis Kluge, a senior researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. To do this, it is necessary, among other things, to introduce sanctions against companies that will help Gazprom build the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline to China (if Moscow and Beijing agree on its construction). In addition, the United States and Europe must stop importing Russian fertilizers that use gas for their production.

Check ships for “shadow fleet”

To prevent Russia from using “shadow fleet” tankers that sell oil outside Western price caps, it would be necessary to check the insurance of tankers passing by coastal European cities, suggested Craig Kennedy, a Russia expert at Harvard University's Davis Center. If the ship refuses inspection, the United States should fine it, the expert believes.

Confiscate assets

In April, the American Congress allowed the US President to confiscate Russia's sovereign assets and use them to restore Ukraine. Economists Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Andrew Kosenko of Marist College believe that Joe Biden should use this power to force a devaluation of the ruble, a bank run in Russia, and the inability of banks to issue loans. Ultimately, this should undermine the military-industrial potential of the Russian Federation, experts say.

Stop all contacts with Russia

Instead of imposing a complex set of sanctions and exceptions, the United States and Europe could completely stop interacting with Moscow, except for contacts on humanitarian grounds, experts say. That is, we should treat Russia the way the United States treats North Korea, Harris and Wessel conclude. “The Russian economy needs to be squeezed at all corners to limit the resources available to fight the war in Ukraine,” write economists Torbjorn Becker of the Stockholm School of Economics and Yuri Gorodnichenko of the University of California, Berkeley.

An article in The Washington Post shows that Western countries have not yet fully exhausted the available instruments of sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation; painful sanctions may still await it, the publication notes.

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