US banksters want to punish Russia with a collapse of the ruble

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

A new draft of sanctions aimed at punishing Russia has been submitted to the US Congress. According to the assurances of their authors, they will be "crushing". After the first news about this and the first comments from the American bank Citigroup, which predicted an imminent collapse of the ruble, a traditional parade of forecasters began in the Russian information field, who began to mourn the Russian economy and the Russian currency in advance.

"The Russian currency could fall by 15 percent (to about 72-73 rubles per dollar) if the US imposes sanctions on the Russian government debt Citigroup experts believe that this can happen in a" worst-case scenario "in which foreigners are prohibited from buying and holding bonds federal loan (OFZ) of Russia ", according to concerned media.

It is worth noting the commendable honesty of one of the initiators of the new sanctions, Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, who told the Bloomberg news agency that his goal is "to impose crushing sanctions and other measures against Putin's Russia as long as he (that is, Putin personally. - Ed..) will not stop interfering with the American electoral process, will not stop cyber attacks and will not remove Russia from Ukraine. " Taking into account that the senator considers Crimea to be Ukrainian territory, and accusations of Russia of interference in the American elections, from his point of view, do not require any evidence at all, then we can safely admit: new sanctions (in the event that they are nevertheless dragged through Congress and the Senate) - it's forever … Unfortunately, the situation is developing in such a way that there are only two options for ending the story with American sanctions: either the Russophobic elites will be able to finally resolve the "Russian question", or the "Russian question" itself will bury at least their political career.

The essence of the new sanctions package: American legal entities will be prohibited from owning new issues of Russian bonds. Additional financial restrictions will be imposed against Russian businessmen deemed too close to the Russian president by senators. And the American intelligence services will be required to draw up and publish a report "on the personal condition of Vladimir Putin" … Separately, another package of anti-Russian measures is under consideration, which include sanctions against Russian energy projects (here, most likely, Nord Stream 2 is meant) and the Russian financial sector.

Against the background of this holiday of Russophobia in the Senate and the sweet expectation of new problems in the Russian economy, which is demonstrated by many financial experts in the Russian information field, it is worth paying special attention to the arguments of opponents of the new restrictions, that is, to the position of the head of the US Treasury Stephen Mnuchin and some senators who expressed their concerns to Bloomberg. Let's start with the senators, who are forced to explain to their colleagues the obvious: no sanctions will affect the policies of Vladimir Putin. This means that if the goal is to change Russia's behavior, one must look for some other tools. Unfortunately, the problem is not even that the voice of common sense is hard to hear through Russophobic hysteriaon Capitol Hill, but in the fact that those wishing to impose sanctions do not pursue any other goals than causing damage to Russia. In this context, the head of the US Treasury, Stephen Mnuchin, who has already achieved the "sinking" of a similar package of measures in the Senate, is having a hard time. This time, too, he said that his position had not changed and that he still considers the arguments set out in his department's report on the anti-Russian sanctions to be correct. Recall that Mnuchin (who can in no way be suspected of pro-Kremlin sympathies) outlined several reasons why it is impossible to deal with the Russian national debt in this way:

1. Sanctions of this kind will not cause any catastrophic harmthe Russian economy.

2. Introducing them will certainly cause damage American investors(which will be forced to sell Russian government bonds at a discount).

3. They will put American financial companies at a disadvantage compared to European competitors who have the ability to buy Russian bonds and, therefore, attract clients willing to invest in these popular high-yield instruments.

4. Sanctions of this kind can cause perturbations in financial markets outside of Russia (many in the United States still remember the unpleasant consequences of the Russian default in 1998, when the "Russian shock" turned into bankruptcy of at least one very large American investment fund and had to be saved at the expense of " printing press ").

Of course, there are no guarantees that Stephen Mnuchin (an official and ex-banker with great connections, an iron will and a difficult character) will be able to prevent the next anti-Russian demarche of American lawmakers. It cannot be ruled out that Donald Trump will not be able or will not want to stop the Senate Russophobes (even though foreign policy is actually the prerogative of the executive branch of government in the United States). But even in the most severe sanctions scenario, panic is a bad advisor, this has already been repeatedly proven in practice. In April of this year, when the financial markets were shaking due to the next sanctions package, and a significant part of well-known experts again decided to speak in the popular genre "Well, that's it, Russia is over", we wrote literally the following: "The scenario seems extremely doubtful that because of the great and terrible US sanctions, Polyus Gold will not be able to mine (in Russia!) and sell (even in China, even in Russia) its gold. Imagine that because of the sanctions against Alexei Miller, Europe will agree to freeze (in the truest sense of the word) without gas from Gazprom, too, does not work. The list can be easily continued in the long term, today's panic is, most likely, just a good moment to invest profitably in Russia."

Gazprom shares recovered in price literally a day later, and Polyus shares took about three months, but in any case, those who did not succumb to panic not only did not lose anything, but also made a lot. Paradoxically, even the purchase of Rusal shares (that is, a company that should have been literally "destroyed" by US sanctions) would also have brought quite significant profits.

This does not mean that Russia will be able to overcome all subsequent sanctions attacks from Washington easily and painlessly, but it is worth remembering (and this is actually recognized even by the American Ministry of Finance) that, by and large, the future of the Russian economy is not in the hands of the United States. but in ours.