Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register April 7 (Reuters) – Russia is facing its most difficult situation in three decades due to unprecedented Western sanctions, but foreign efforts to isolate it from the world economy will fail, Prime Minister Mikhail Misoustin said on Thursday. Western countries are gradually expanding a series of economic sanctions to try to force Russia to end its military operation in Ukraine and withdraw its forces. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” that says it was not designed to seize territory but to destroy its southern neighbor’s military capabilities and arrest those it considers dangerous nationalists. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register “Undoubtedly, the current situation could be described as the most difficult in the last three decades for Russia,” Misoustin told the Duma, or lower house of parliament. “Such sanctions were not used even in the darkest times of the Cold War.” Western sanctions have already cut Russia off from the global financial network and left many of its top banks without access to the international SWIFT messaging banking system, and some traders have begun denying Russian oil shipments, stepping up pressure on Moscow’s finances. . Prior to the recent sanctions, Russia planned to create a budget surplus of 1.3 trillion rubles ($ 17 billion) this year, equal to 1% of gross domestic product. On Thursday, Misoustin said Russia would spend everything it earns this year on state aid. The government has so far committed more than 1 trillion rubles to anti-crisis support for businesses, social security payments and families with children, of which 250 billion rubles will be spent on state aid for the Russian Railways. Russia has introduced capital controls in retaliation for sanctions, making it almost impossible for foreign investors to sell their assets, both industrially and economically, if they decide to leave the country. “If you have to leave, production will have to keep working as it provides jobs. Our citizens work there,” Misoustin said. The Kremlin has suggested it could nationalize assets held by Western investors who decide to leave. As some of the outgoing companies transfer their holdings to Russian companies, Mishustin said, the situation offers room for new business opportunities. read more “Our financial system, the lifeblood of the whole economy, has endured,” Misustin said. “The stock market and the ruble are stabilizing. I doubt any other country would have endured this. We did.” The European Commission on Tuesday proposed new sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, including a ban on the purchase of Russian coal and Russian ships entering EU ports, and said it was working to ban oil imports as well. read more Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Reuters. Editing by Kevin Liffey Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
