No, time is not on Russia’s side: Borrell depicts Russian economy shrinking due to war and EU sanctions 

European Union sanctions have already significantly weakened the Russian economy, and the future of the country becomes bleaker each day as Russia continues its war of aggression against Ukraine, EU High Representative Josep Borrell says in his latest blog, titled “No, time is not on Russia’s side”.

In his article, Borrell argues against the regular Russian claims that the economy is not really suffering from Western sanctions and that time is on Russia’s side in its war of aggression against Ukraine.

Borrell says the reorientation of the Russian economy towards military production has already negatively affected the lives of many ordinary Russian citizens. He cites as an example many defects of collective heating systems in several Russian towns last winter. “If the war continues, it will only get worse,” says Borrell.

Borrell also gives examples of how EU sanctions are already hitting Russia’s purse. He says the revenue that the Russian economy derives from fossil fuel exports has halved since spring 2022, thanks to the European embargo on coal and oil and the price-cap decided by the G7 on oil exports. In 2022, the Russian economy also experienced a sharp rise in inflation, and since spring 2022, the rouble has also been falling steadily.

According to Borrell, Russia has already experienced significant capital flight, and its industrial weakness becomes more pronounced: “The production of cars in Russia has plummeted to half of what it was before the war. The space industry, which was once the pride of the country, is in deep trouble. Air transport has become quite dangerous due to a lack of maintenance, software updates and spare parts.”

Russia, despite being three times more populated than Ukraine, is in reality already considerably weakened by EU sanctions, concludes Borrell.

“Over time, their effect is set to be increasingly felt as human capital erodes, the volume and quality of investments deteriorates, and Russia is deprived of the advanced technologies needed to support its future,” he says.

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Borrell’s blog in Armenian, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Georgian, Romanian, Ukrainian and Russian