The challenge between Russia and the West continues not only in the diplomatic sphere and indirectly on the battlefield in Ukraine, but also in the economic sphere. Russian President Putin again denied the impact of sanctions imposed on Moscow by the EU, US and UK, arguing that the “economic blitzkrieg” launched against Russia has “failed” while the same sanctions are already “provoking a decline”. “Standard of living” in European countries. However, the interpretation of the country’s economy is different, as evidenced by the words that Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina gave to the Duma, Russia’s parliament, painted an extremely negative picture and about “structural changes”. due to spoke Western measures.
The Kremlin leader then argued that the economic situation in Russia is “stabilizing,” as is inflation, as the ruble returns to prewar levels. And he recommended to “accelerate” the transition from the dollar “to the ruble and other national currencies” in international transactions of Russia.
Speaking to the Duma, Nabiullina said that “sanctions” will hit the financial market first, although now they will have a stronger impact on the economy, “which has a ‘limited survival time’ thanks to inventories.” The central bank, which “can dispose of around its reserves of gold, yuan and other assets not exposed to the sanctions risks”, therefore opens a new rate cut and postpones the inflation target to 20242024, due to price hikes related to supply difficulties However, the situation is Not rosy around the world either, so much so that the World Bank has cut estimates for global growth in 2022 to +3.2% from the 4.1% originally forecast and announced a $170 billion package of measures that will even bigger is committed to Covid ($157 billion) to help its members deal with ongoing crises.
On the combat front there are no signs of slowing down the Russian offensive, which is still centered on Mariupol, where the bombing of the Azovstal Steel Plant has resumed and a permit to enter and exit the city has been imposed. The Russians have also taken control of the city of Kreminna, where the head of the Lugansk regional military administration, Sergiy Gaidai, has denounced the inability to evacuate civilians and the killing of four people trying to escape. Russian rockets also hit the cities of Dnipro, Kharkiv, Lviv and Kramatorsk, as well as the Synelnykiv and Pavlograd districts, causing casualties and destroying infrastructure and houses.
Instead, Ukrainian forces have announced that they have liberated numerous settlements around the city of Izium in the Kharkiv region, where the largest concentration of Russian units is located and from where “they will try to launch an offensive to the east”. to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
The violent offensive, mainly affecting the east of the country, was predicted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who returned to beg the West for arms and defined any delay in supplies as “allowing Russia to kill its people.” While “they are destroying Mariupol, they also want to wipe out other cities and towns in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions,” he added, condemning the deportation by the Russians of 5,000 children, of whom there is no news. On the fate of the children, a human rights group in Crimea has also denounced that the Russians forcibly removed about 150 children, 100 of whom were hospitalized, from Mariupol to be taken “to occupied Donetsk and Russian Taganrog.” Meanwhile, Lugansk authorities have urged residents to evacuate the southeastern region immediately. And the mayor of Bucha, Anatoliy Fedoruk, told Ukrainian television that an estimated “one in five of those who stayed in the city during the occupation was killed”.
Even today, it is the Pope who makes a new appeal for peace, asking us to abandon “our human projects” and to be converted “to the projects of peace and justice”. Major Sergiy Volyna, commander of the 36th Brigade of Ukrainian marines besieged in Mariupol, wrote to him asking him to intervene “to save the exhausted civilian population in the city”.
