“These new measures include sweeping restrictions on Russian military end users to impair (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s military capabilities and will also deny exports across Russia to sensitive cutting-edge technology, primarily targeting Russia’s defence, aerospace, and maritime sectors,” he said.According to Singh, the US and its partners will effectively be cutting off more than half of all high-tech imports going into Russia.”This includes curbing Russia’s access to advanced semiconductors and other foundational technologies that Russia needs to diversify and modernise its economy. Working in tandem, these financial sanctions and the export controls will undercut Putin’s aspirations to project power on the world stage, and those impacts intensified dramatically just today,” he said.Singh said the Russian stock market plunged over 30 per cent at one point on Thursday before being halted by local regulators. Russia’s currency, the ruble, weakened to its weakest value on record against the dollar before the central bank intervened and the price the market is charging the Russian government to borrow is now above 15 per cent.”These impacts over time will translate into higher inflation, higher interest rates, lower purchasing power, lower investment, lower productive capacity, lower growth, and lower living standards in Russia. To be clear, this is not the outcome we wanted. It is both a tragedy for the people of Ukraine and a very raw deal for the Russian people,” he said.The US has intentionally scoped its sanctions to deliver a severe impact on the Russian economy while minimising the cost for itself, as well as its allies and partners, Singh said.”To be clear, our sanctions are not designed to cause any disruption to the current flow of energy from Russia to the world. We have carved out energy payments on a time-bound basis to allow for an orderly transition of these flows away from sanctioned institutions, and we provided other licenses to provide for an orderly wind-down of business,” he said.”What we control is to make sure this will be a strategic failure, not just because of the sanctions but also because of the export controls, because of Europe’s accelerated diversification away from Russia in terms of its energy supply, due to our fortification of NATO’s eastern flank, and due to the renewed energy and unity and determination by the West to stand up for our values and advance our principles,” he said.
Source link
