Russia has diversified its exports very well, the biggest buyer of oil is China, which buys 30% of Russian oil. A boycott here could make Russia think twice.
On the contrary, care must be taken not to shoot yourself in the foot in these current emotional discussions. It could lead to saying: Our chemical industry is broke and at the moment the US is taking over our business because unfortunately we don’t have enough oil and gas.
And the other sanctions, do you think they are convenient?
You bring a lot. Since 2014 and the first sanctions, Russia has tried to develop spare parts and technology, but Russian customers prefer Western spare parts. This didn’t work very well with import substitution.
And now you can see how the Russian economy is starting to collapse – problems in the production of cars, in agricultural machinery. More than 30,000 IT specialists have emigrated in the last four weeks alone.
According to estimates, Russia will lose between 10 and 15 percent of its economic power this year alone and, at best, have zero growth in the next few years. In fact, it is economic suicide. It is the slowdown of an emerging economy back to a developing country.
So now we should just let the sanctions go into effect. Its long-term effects are disastrous.
Do you think it is possible for Russia to secede from eastern Ukraine? Would we then have an endless conflict?
It is theoretically possible and I find it very realistic. However, Russia has yet to prove that it is really capable of not only conquering this area, but also keeping it permanently occupied.
Let’s assume they succeed. So we must first ask the question: will Ukraine tolerate this? Of course not. There will certainly be no peace treaty in this regard, because for that Moscow would have to force Ukraine to agree to it.
And it could only do that if it was completely subjugated militarily. However, at the moment, it seems to me, Russia does not have the means to do so.
And the most likely outcome?
The conflict will be frozen and there will be a kind of new division of Germany. Or maybe a demarcation line like in Korea.
And then you must ask yourself: what has Russia achieved? What then is concretely present in these areas? Landscapes and cities heavily bombed, they would then dominate the ruins. There is still the old coal industry in Donbass. But it’s not as important as it was in your day.
Since 2014, Russia has supported these puppet regimes, i.e. the so-called breakaway areas, with about 7 billion US dollars a year: for Russia, then it becomes an expensive diversion: industry and traffic structure are destroyed, agriculture no longer takes place. What else do you want to produce there? So it would just be part of the Russian Empire.