As Novye Izvestia has already reported, the US government announced sanctions against the Russian Federation, according to which US banks will be banned from processing transactions of large Russian credit institutions. This is a "preliminary" package of sanctions that the United States is going to impose if Russia invades Ukraine.
These measures are aimed at harming the Russian economy by breaking the "correspondent" relations between the banks of the parties, which is the basis of global cash flows.
At the same time, US Secretary of State Blinken said that the West's response may follow the current situation of "medium boiling" around Ukraine. Blinken said that the United States is not considering the possibility of ceding territories to Ukraine in order to prevent a war.
However, the United States has so far refused Zelensky's request to impose "preventive" sanctions against the Russian Federation (the Ukrainian leader asked the West to impose restrictions without waiting for Russia's "invasion" of his country).
“The purpose of the sanctions is primarily to deter Russia from starting a war. As soon as you enter them, this effect will disappear. So until the last moment, we intend to maintain this deterrent effect, ”the US Secretary of State told CNN.
This means that sanctions against Russia are not going to be introduced before the start of hostilities, despite Zelensky's requests.
Instead, it became known that Russian banks imported $4.97 billion into the country in December, and this is a record amount that is second only to the covid panic in March 2020 and the 2014 crisis. Compared to the average for January-November (about $2 billion per month), the import of cash currency increased 2.5 times, and in terms of the weight of hundred-dollar bills reached 50 tons.
Experts believe that this is due to the threat of Western sanctions, which can provoke difficulties in non-cash payments. Banks are preparing for an outflow of funds against the backdrop of negative news, previously people stocked up on money against the backdrop of the imposition of sanctions in 2014 and after the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Russians traditionally consider cash currency a protective asset.
Analysts, however, are very cautious about this measure. Indeed, the imposition of tough sanctions may not have fatal consequences, not only for Russia.
Publicist Gleb Morev writes about this:
“I encountered the fact that many do not understand the difference between a war of sanctions and just a war.
Russia is not participating in the sanctions war. The war of sanctions is the prerogative of the "post-historical" states of the West. Its goal is to establish a new hierarchy in the world, where the determining criterion for the development and significance of a country is its economic development, and not military power (as was the case before the “end of history”). Roughly speaking, if the Russian economy is twelfth, then your place is twelfth. The sixth means the sixth.
Economically weak and in a degenerate political trend (from democracy to dictatorship), Russia is trying to resist this new hierarchy. Oppose the traditional "historical" method - with the help of a banal war. But since Russia cannot wage war with the powerful “post-historical” alliance of NATO, the “historical” Ukraine has been chosen as the target.
The problem with “post-historical” sanctions wars is that their effectiveness in terms of causing critical damage to the enemy (in full accordance with the general trend towards “humanization”) is not as great as traditional wars, with the help of bullets and bombs. The sanctions war does not kill you, but slowly and more severely hurts, making your life more and more uncomfortable.
Russia in its current patrimonial form cannot agree with the new (economic) hierarchy, because such a hierarchy casts doubt on the existence of the Russian Federation as a state in its current form, which is the fruit not of the economic, but of the political logic of former “historical” times. This logic collapsed in 1991, but only partially. Entering the world of "post-history" implies the continuation of the vector of 1991 and the destruction of patrimoniality.
However, clinging to the world of "history" and becoming the object of a sanctions war, Russia makes a completely historical choice without quotes - it, as an economically and politically weak state, is moving into the category of slowly decaying countries with impoverished populations like Iran and North Korea, critically increasing its dependence from the leader of an authoritarian world - unlike Russia, cautious China, which so far avoids militaristic withdrawal into "history".
But political analyst Gleb Pavlovsky warns that in the event of tough sanctions, war just becomes inevitable:
“Sanctions are a specific political action without a limited political goal. The goal is replaced by punishment, and the one who imposes sanctions enters the role of the punishing Judge. Sanctions, together with anti-sanctions, piled on top of each other, form an international punitive regime - a regime of exclusion as an ersatz of the world order. In the punishing game, the state of normal life is forgotten - it becomes impossible. Sanctions are pushing world politics and Russia towards "geopolitics".
The sanctions regime (as opposed to the policy of containment) bears an indelible emphasis on demanding unquestioning obedience. Sanctions in the postmodern world replace ideology and themselves become an imaginary value that does not allow for serious debate. They are non-alternative. If the idea of containment was based on a sober idea of the risk of mutually destroying civilization, then sanctions are based on the dream of a selective apocalypse for individual countries, without loss of comfort. The sanctions regime makes it easier to come to terms with the catastrophe and blend seamlessly into it itself. This catastrophe is (gradual) without red lines. There is no way out for the Russian regime, Russia will not be able to withstand the endless confrontation. Retreat would lead the Kremlin to a loss of power - it is easier for him to become radically bad. An attempt to build a special global extradition regime for the mega-country of the Russian Federation, i.e. global statehood is rapidly leading to global collapse. The regime of sanctions/anti-sanctions is a short cut to a military outcome…”