Russia: On sanctions

by Scott Humor

On Monday April 16, a well-oiled machine of anti-Russian sanctions experienced a major hiccup. This day the US Treasury promised to announce new sanctions against Russia’s companies and persons, if  the US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to be believed. Why would the US Ambassador to the UN do such things as announcing the US Treasury’s plans is everyone’s guess, especially since this Monday, when it was still earlier morning in the US, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave an interview to the BBC, during which he said the following words : “obsession with Russophobia which looks like, you know, genocide by sanctions.”

As far as I can tell no one in media paid attention to his words, concentrating, instead, on things that don’t matter, like Deripaska.

However, someone paid attention, because a few hours latter…

First it was National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow who suggested that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was “confused” when she announced Sunday the Trump administration would unveil new sanctions against Russia. Then White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to Haley’s comments in a press briefing Monday, saying the administration is “considering additional sanctions on Russia” but has not made a final decision.

While the blaming game of who got confused issued,  no one could say why administration’s  plans to “strangle” Russia economically by means of a torrent of sanctions got muddled.

The key here was Lavrov’s remark on the nature of anti-Russian sanctions as being a genocide. This indicated a complete reversal of Russia’s government attitude to sanctions that for the last four years have been mostly positive as in “sanctions help Russia’s economy to develop.” These sanctions are not anything new for this century, since the US started sanctioning Russia in 2001 more than 70 announced and countless hidden sanctions were imposed on Russia’s industries, companies, capital, education, culture, science and people. Multiple misnamed sanctions against Russia include the STAND for Ukraine Act H.R. 5094 and The US Bill H.R. 1644 H.R. 1644, the Korea Interdiction and Modernization of Sanctions Act.

After organized by the Western governments and treasonous Soviet leaders breaking  the country apart and sale of one third of its territories and people into the Western slavery, the US government and institutions organized ten years of Liberal Terror also known as The Rape of Russia. As a result, Russia had 10 million excessive deaths, which comparable to the genocide by the Bolsheviks terror and the fascist European invasion of the Soviet Russia in 1941-1945.

From Russians’ perspective, the Western nations have never for a day stopped their wars against them. Maybe that’s why everyone ignored Lavrov’s new definition of the Western sanctions as genocide. Also, the matter wasn’t that the US Treasury sanctioned  a few Jewish families who were placed by the “Russia liquidation team” to hold strategic economic assets and to transfer billions from Russia to British and American banks, while using these assets for creating socially explosive atmosphere inside the country. They had done it many times, once in Spring 2009, before the presidential elections by not paying to the workers in northern town of  Pikalevo causing dramatic protests for weeks. The government ended up paying 63 million rubles in wage arrears to the workers.

Vladimir Putin, who was a Prime Minister at the time, had to personally interfere to make owners to pay debts to outraged workers in the town of Pikalevo, 246 kilometers east of St. Petersburg, with a population of 22,200. Early this year all three crucial industrial facilities were closed down in the town. As a result local people have thrice taken to the streets to demand the restoration of heat and water supplies at least to hospitals and child-care centers. Before Putin interfered, demonstrators blocked the Novaya Ladoga-Vologda federal highway.

“You have made thousands of people hostage of your incompetence, ambitions and, probably, greed. That is absolutely impermissible,” Putin told then to Oleg Deripaska, as well as local authorities. “Nobody will ever be able to persuade me that regional authorities have done everything in their powers to help the people.”  See, Wage arrears arrive to protesting Pikalevo after Putin interferes. This was when the famous video of Putin forcing Deripaska to sign a new contract and saying “Give me my pen back” was taken and leaked.

Anyone with half a brain understands that the state can always take its “pen” back from placeholders like Deripaska and others “oligarchs.”  It helps that population in general sees as unfair and unjust that these people grabbed and hold assets developed and built in the Soviet Union. So, it’s hardly unlikely that Lavrov referred as “genocidal” push to strip assets from Deripaska, the Rothenbergs, and the Vekselbergs. Since in the most sanctioned companies the other major shareholder is the state, and the sanctions are not allowing the foreigners to buy the sanctioned individuals out, the state will get their shares one way or another.

Russia’s government’s dramatic turn in its attitude to sanctions continued with  Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions following a meeting of the SCO Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Beijing, April 24, 2018.

“As far as the results of the foreign ministers’ meeting in Toronto are concerned, its anti-Russian underpinnings are clear. Regrettably, this anti-Russian and very slippery line has been followed even by those G7 countries which assure us that they do not share the attempts to isolate Russia.

We will uphold our positions and wait patiently for our partners to realize that these actions are an absolute dead end and lack any prospects.”

Again, Lavrov emphasizes that the US sanctions are genocidal, racist, that they are targeting Russian nation and that they will bring those who impose them to “an absolute dead end.”

The main reason could be the sanctions against Rosoboronexport, the sole state intermediary agency for Russia’s exports/imports of defense-related and dual use products, technologies and services, and Russia’s ability to protect itself and its allies.

Lavrov never exaggerates and always states plainly and clearly of what it is. If the US continues on the path of sanctions it will meet its absolute dead end, because at this point as April sanctions are concerned, the US Treasury moved into territory described in Russia’s new military doctrine as a threat to existence of the nation.

The panic that took place on April 16th indicates that Trump’s administration and someone inside the US government got the message.

Scott Humor

Director of Research and Development

author of The enemy of the State

POKÉMON IN UKRAINE: Tactical War Game Introduction MANUAL (War Game Manuals Book

In case you have forgotten what happened in Ukraine, this book should refresh your memory with the incredibly precise and humorous chronicles: ANTHOLOGY OF RUSSIAN HUMOR: FROM MAIDAN TO TRUMP

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