"The
sanctions announced by the West will sink the Russian economy, the mobilization
will deal a blow to the Kremlin's political regime, and the liberation of
Kherson will force Russia to lower the bar of its demands - why did these
predictions not come true?
As the year ended, the Center for Eastern European Studies (RESC) tried to remember
what commentators had predicted for Russia starting a military operation against Ukraine and
why those predictions did not come true.
First, according
to RESC, the Western sanctions have not dealt the Russian economy as much of a
blow as expected.
"Immediately
after February 24, a lot of hope was placed on an economic blow to Russia. A
catastrophic decline of the ruble was announced and it was promised that the
situation in the Russian economy at the end of this year will be so difficult
that Russia may no longer have enough strength and resources to continue the
military operation, and its political regime will face very big
challenges," reads the RESC review.
Also, according
to the center, it is predicted that Russia will not commit to mobilization, and
if it does announce it, it will deal such a blow to the political regime that
it will hardly be able to withstand.
It is also
predicted that after Ukraine frees Kherson, which was occupied at the beginning
of the war, a storm will arise in the "bunker" of Russian President
Vladimir Putin, and the Russians will soften their negotiating demands.
"In June,
one of the most visible and audible political commentators, Andrei
Piontkovskis, made the following prediction:
"I'll tell
you how things will go next." The closest result of the Ukrainian
counterattack will be the liberation of Kherson. This will cause a storm in
Putin's bunker. In Kuru, everything is already out, because everyone is well
aware that the goals of the war have not been fulfilled. The result of the
capture of Kherson will be that the Russian desire to return to the negotiation
formula that was discussed in the first month of the military operation will
increase significantly. Formulas providing for the return of the Russian army
to February 23. limits,” RESC quoted the reviewer as saying.
Western sanctions
suppress the development of the Russian economy, the country's economy was hit
by a recession, but it never collapsed.
After V. Putin
announced mobilization in the country in September, thousands of citizens fled
the country, but this did not provoke mass protests.
When the Russian
army withdrew from the city of Kherson in November, the Kremlin assured that it
did not consider it a humiliation and insisted that Kherson is still part of
Russia."
The events in Afghanistan have shown that the West does not
always get what it wants, even if it spends billions of euros or dollars on it.
The West is a minority in the world (one, "golden", billion of people), while
the rest of the world is as many as seven billion.
This has a huge impact on the effectiveness of Western
sanctions, as the majority of the world's population does not support sanctions
against Russia and continues to trade with Russia.
Therefore, the sanctions are increasingly arrogant and deal
a blow to our own well-being, raising prices and the chances of a crisis in our
economy. At the same time, sanctions isolate our economy from the rest of the
world, reducing our ability to turn world events in our favor.
Meanwhile, Russia is one of the most important suppliers of
energy, fertilizers, food and other resources in the world. Sanctions have
never been applied to such an important player. Predicting the impact of
sanctions is therefore difficult.
Russians have enough food and energy, and their prices in
stores are astonishingly low.
