Russia is on the way to beingunpluggedof the global economic system, said French Secretary of State for European Affairs Clément Beaune on Monday, February 28, calling on the European Union to be “consciousof its forces in the management of the Ukrainian conflict.
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“Russia is being gradually disconnected from the rest of the world, especially economically, and this will have an extremely heavy impact“, estimated Clément Beaune on the private radio Europe 1, evoking in particular the collapse of the ruble and “the panic intervention of the Russian central bank“. “It has often been said that sanctions are a form of trigger light, or water gun of international politics. We went to another universe“, he added.
The ruble on Monday broke historic records of weakness against the dollar and the euro on the Moscow Stock Exchange, due to sanctions imposed due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To defend the economy and the national currency against Western sanctions, the Central Bank of Russia had raised its key rate from 9.5 to 20% on Monday morning. “Let’s be aware of our strength“said Clément Beaune. “It is Russia that needs us the most, that needs the rest of the world. To believe that one can be a brutal, aggressive, invading power, alone in the world, cut off from everything else, does not work.“, he hammered.
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“It is also a lesson for our democracies which are sometimes seen as a little weak, a little naive, a little decadent. This is undoubtedly Vladimir Putin’s reasoning. He thought he would find a divided, collapsed Europe in front of him, we organized ourselves“. However, the Minister specified that it was first of all “the Russian oligarchs, those who have fortunes in Europe, who are targetedby sanctions. “We are going to make sure to spare as much as possible the Russian people who indeed, I am quite convinced, did not need this war“, did he declare.
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