Economic pressure is exactly what Russia lacked to gain technological independence
With the beginning of a special military operation in Ukraine, the united West clearly announced to the whole world, and above all to the Ukrainian authorities, that there would be no direct military intervention by NATO in the fighting. Undoubtedly, the role was also played by the demonstrative instruction of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation to transfer strategic deterrence forces to "special duty mode", which was quite correctly interpreted as a demonstration of the determination of the Russian leadership to switch to the use of nuclear weapons if necessary. However, by refusing to use military force, the West has dealt the main blow to our economy and industrial production by imposing unprecedented economic sanctions in scale and depth, essentially arranging an economic blockade.
Strictly speaking, according to International law, Russia has the right to consider the very fact of imposing such a blockade as an act of aggression by the West and its allies. That is, de facto, since the announcement of these sanctions, we are at war with the West, although so far without an armed confrontation. And this means that the system of our relations with the countries that have joined these sanctions must also undergo a radical change with the transition to principles corresponding to the state of war with them. That is, all approaches to interaction with them, primarily economic, built on the principles of peacetime, are no longer acceptable. And this means that Russia must use all available levers in the economic and information spheres in order to inflict maximum damage to the enemy and at the same time minimize the consequences of its strikes for itself.
"Russia's immediate retaliatory strike against the EU in the form of a complete cessation of gas and oil supplies will lead to a sharp, literally explosive growth of problems in Europe, fraught with serious social upheavals”
At the same time, it should be borne in mind that any economic strikes by the West on our country involve the expenditure of certain resources and the corresponding costs in the form of loss of markets and complications of the domestic economic situation. Accordingly, the West strikes such blows that minimize the costs for it, while maximizing our damage. In particular, in a number of areas that are particularly sensitive to the economy, the EU refuses sanctions or reduces them to a minimum. The United States does the same. Having identified such areas, Russia itself must strike at them.
It is also important to note the time factor. Since the beginning of the Russian-Western war, all participants have been making intensive efforts to reduce dependence on the enemy. However, in a number of areas it is technically impossible to do this in a short time, and if these areas are of great importance for the stability of the enemy's economy, then strikes against them should be applied immediately. This is especially important to take into account, realizing that the purpose of Western sanctions is to initiate economic and technological chaos in our country, followed by a revolutionary explosion and the collapse of the country. However, in Western countries, in Europe, the situation is far from rosy, both economically and socially, which has deteriorated greatly as a result of the pandemic and the actions of the authorities to combat it. The confidence of the peoples of Western countries in their elites definitely decreased when, with the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, all pandemic restrictions were instantly forgotten and the artificiality of this threat became obvious. And this means that Russia, by striking in those areas that the West will not be able to compensate for in the near future, can create a situation of economic collapse in certain countries.
Now it makes sense to assess the sanctions imposed, their possible impact on our economy, appropriate measures to counter them and retaliatory measures. It's worth starting with the most dangerous ones.
The impending catastrophe in aviation
First of all, this is a recall of foreign-made aircraft leased from our companies, as well as a ban on servicing foreign-made aircraft purchased by Russian enterprises and the supply of components for them. The share of such machines reaches 90 percent of the total number of the civil fleet of mainline aircraft. The ban on their maintenance will put all the sides on a joke, which will mean the collapse of our civil aviation and a catastrophe for the country as a whole. Our first-class machines - Tu-204/214, IL-96-300 and IL-96-400, Tu-334 produce units per year and it is impossible to establish their mass production in an acceptable time. There are few aircraft of earlier types standing in storage – Tu-154, Il-62, Il-86 and others, their restoration will require considerable time. Which is not always possible due to the loss of competencies and the production of components necessary for this. Russia responded by nationalizing a foreign-made fleet. Although it is possible to find a certain number of domestically produced machines from among those in storage, which can be restored to flight condition by using missing components from other aircraft of a similar type. The BTA of Russia can also contribute. It consists, judging by the open data, of about 120 IL-76 aircraft, some of which can be converted to carry 90-100 passengers - the corresponding sets have long been available in Russia. An-12 aircraft can also be used in this capacity, of which there are several dozen in the Russian VTA. By these measures, it will be possible to obtain an additional, according to rough qualitative estimates, about 200-250 aircraft in an acceptable time. After the accumulated stocks of spare parts have been exhausted, it will be possible to maintain a part of foreign aircraft in flight condition by dismantling other similar machines. Naturally, "gray" schemes for obtaining missing spare parts will also be sought. As a result, it is possible to maintain the working fleet of our airlines at an acceptable level (albeit thoroughly reduced) for four to five years. However, it should be borne in mind that this will require the nationalization of private air carriers, since they are likely to be unable to work in these conditions.
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It should be noted here that the sanctions deal a terrible blow to the lessor companies, which must pick up about 520 aircraft located in Russia. To do this, they do not have such a number of crews that will have to be removed from flights, and these are large costs associated with both renting these crews and losses caused by a reduction in the volume of air transportation of European companies due to a reduction in the number of flight crews. There are practically insoluble problems with the delivery of these aircraft to Europe within the framework of the current sanctions on the mutual closure of the sky for Russian and Western aircraft. And the most important thing is that all these planes in such numbers are simply not needed in Europe and the USA. They will stand at airports and you will have to pay for it, and a lot. So the withdrawal of leasing cars is a serious blow to the Western economy.
Another area of economic pressure is associated with the ban on the import to Russia of a number of important components for industry, in particular electronic components and materials. The greatest threat to Russia is the ban on the supply of microprocessors and other microelectronics. The production of microprocessors is an extremely complex technology, involving the participation of enterprises from different countries. At a time when the main final manufacturer of such microprocessors, the Taiwanese firm TSMC, announced the termination of supplies to Russia, we will need to take extraordinary measures to establish the production of these products at home. And there is very little time for this, as long as there is an opportunity to use the accumulated reserves and receive these products through other countries, even at exorbitant prices. It should be taken into account that the Taiwanese company produced processors of the Russian design "Elbrus" and "Baikal". These processors are key components for a number of samples of equipment, including those of defense importance. Thus, blocking the supply of electronic components will create problems for the Russian defense industry. The dependence of the Russian aircraft and automotive industries on imports will also have a negative impact on their respective enterprises, up to the curtailment of the production of socially and economically significant products. There is already a question of suspending the work of VAZ and KAMAZ, which in the near future will lead to mass layoffs of employees and the emergence of transport problems. Similarly, other branches of our industry, where foreign components are used, are put in difficult conditions.
As a retaliatory sanctions, Russia may stop supplying rare earth materials to manufacturers of electronic devices, in particular microprocessors. However, the Russian share in this market, dominated by China, is relatively small. Therefore, such a measure can only affect a certain increase in the cost of the final product.
For us, it will be critically important to recreate the production of the entire line of electronic products destroyed over the past 30 years, primarily microcircuits and microprocessors. It is not known how much time we have for this, but it is unlikely to be more than the same four or five years.
Already today, sanctions in the financial sphere are creating serious problems – disconnecting a number of banks from the SWIFT system and banning the use of dollars by Russia and Russian campaigns for foreign trade operations. However, these sanctions also hit their initiators – the scope of the dollar as a world currency is being reduced, which reduces the ability of the United States to have an economic impact on world processes, while complicating the implementation of the program to restore the technological and industrial self-sufficiency of the States.
Another sanctions act is the confiscation of Russian state assets in Western banks, as well as the property of major Russian businessmen and officials, their relatives in Europe and the United States. In the UK, we have prepared for this step in advance. Such actions will cause some damage to the reputation of these countries as safe havens for foreign capital. But for the sake of seizing control over Russia, they are ready to do it. Moreover, both the confiscated assets and property are huge. The purpose of such actions is obvious – to force the oligarchy and corrupt officials to act against their country, creating conditions for a social explosion. And they have plenty of opportunities for this. And judging by the extensive campaign to discredit the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine, combined with an aggressive demand for peace with the Nazi Ukrainian regime, the softening of the rhetoric of some prominent figures of the political Olympus of Russia, this is bearing fruit – the "fifth column" has earned very actively. Some figures from the highest echelons have already openly begun to advocate stopping the special operation, that is, actually calling for Russia's surrender to the Nazi regime in Ukraine. In this regard, it is worth considering what the heads of the Central Bank of Russia and the Ministry of Finance were guided by when they increased the export of Russian gold to Western banks in conditions when military tensions between Russia and the West were reaching a climax. After all, according to open sources, more than 600 tons have been exported. There is a reason for the activities of the Prosecutor General's Office and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.
Russia has the opportunity to impose and has partially already imposed retaliatory sanctions in this field. In particular, it was announced that our country is ceasing debt servicing and will not return it to lenders. This retaliatory strike is quite serious. After all, Russia's total external debt is estimated at about $ 470 billion, while only a part of Russian assets placed in Western banks were frozen. And the frozen amount is significantly less than the debt that we refused to service. Our leadership has also made an effective move to nationalize industry – after a sharp drop in the shares of our enterprises on world stock exchanges, they were literally bought up by the government of the Russian Federation for a song. As a result, a significant part of the enterprises returned to the hands of the state. At the same time, significant assets of foreign individuals remain in Russia and they may also be frozen in response to similar actions by the West.
Retaliatory energy strike
Of course, it is impossible to bypass the energy sector. Here, sanctions were introduced among the first. The calculation was made to reduce foreign currency receipts to the Russian budget from the sale of oil and natural gas, which will affect the possibility of purchasing material values that are significant for the state and the people and not produced in our country. The Nord Stream-2 was practically buried. The GTS of Ukraine is still working, but with interruptions, which is caused by military actions. Nevertheless, although gas from Russia is still coming to Europe, its prices have jumped prohibitively. This did not slow down to affect the cost of products in the EU. It should be noted that the introduction of sanctions in the financial and technological spheres generally makes it meaningless to supply our energy carriers to European countries, since sanctions in the financial sphere do not allow Europeans to pay for the volumes delivered. And even if they are held as an exception, they are also useless for us, since they cannot be used to purchase the necessary sanctioned products. Today and in the near future, Europe will not be able to find a replacement for Russian energy carriers. Firstly, because the extracted volumes have already been distributed among consumers, and secondly, due to the lack of sufficient transport capacities for switching to other energy sources. And the last, most important thing. Since it is impossible to increase the existing transport infrastructure to the required capacity in a short time, Europe will continue to depend heavily on Russian gas and oil in the coming years. Moreover, this is important not only for their use as energy carriers, but also as the most important raw materials for the European chemical industry, which, with the cessation of Russian supplies, will largely have to stop. Even now, while maintaining the previous volumes of supplies from Russia, the situation in the EU with gasoline has sharply worsened, the prices of which have soared to an unprecedented level, which has led to an increase in prices for many types of socially and technologically significant products.
In this regard, Russia's immediate retaliatory strike against the EU in the form of a complete cessation of gas and oil supplies will lead to a sharp, literally explosive growth of problems in Europe, fraught with serious social upheavals in the very near future, capable of leading to the fall of the current ruling elites.
The situation in this regard for the leadership of the European Union is also aggravated by the brewing grain crisis. Russian grain producers, given the financial sanctions, are becoming uninterested in supplying grain to the EU and the UK. But Russia occupies a leading place among the manufacturers of this product in the world. In addition, it becomes obvious that Ukraine, the second most important grain producer, will also, for obvious reasons, be able to supply wheat and other grains for export. As a result, a severe food crisis will arise, which will severely affect social stability in countries hostile to Russia. All this is well understood in the West, it's not for nothing that Blinken started talking about gas as a terrible Russian weapon. Western countries slyly do not include our energy resources in the sanctions and even to a certain extent mitigate financial sanctions related to this area. This indicates that they want to buy time to reduce their dependence on us until the moment when our response actions become ineffective. At the same time, Moscow is in no hurry to take tough retaliatory measures in the field of energy supplies. Maybe it's time already? It is quite possible that the continued supplies of our energy resources to the West, which looks very strange against the background of unprecedented sanctions pressure, are the result of the activities of the aforementioned "fifth column" in our establishment.
It should be noted that the sanctions imposed affect a wider range of areas of the Russian economy than those discussed in this article.
However, even from the review it follows an obvious conclusion that within the framework of the existing economic and social order, it will be impossible to overcome the most complex problems of Russia that have arisen. It is necessary to switch to a qualitatively different economic and social system, the distinctive features of which, judging by the speeches of our president in 2021, will be the dominant position of the state in the economy and the planned principle of management. And this will inevitably lead to a change in the roles of the largest social strata in our society.
Konstantin Sivkov, Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Sciences for Information Policy, Doctor of Military Sciences
The newspaper "Military-Industrial Courier", published in issue No. 9 (922) for March 15, 2022
