"Panic late"

Economist Ruben Yenikolopov-about new, "destructive" sanctions because of the war with Ukraine

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the United States announced the introduction of “destructive” sanctions: personal-against members of the families of Russian officials close to Vladimir Putin, and financial-against a number of Russian companies, including VTB, Sbra and Alfa-Bank. Washington also imposed restrictions on export to Russia of high -tech products - created in the USA or in other countries, but using American technologies. This package of sanctions, according to the White House, should have a serious impact on the “Russian economy, financial system and access to advanced technologies” and “even more isolate Russia from the global financial system”. Medusa talked with the rector of the Russian Economic School Ruben Yenikolopov on how new restrictions will affect the lives of Russians.

Sanctions against Russia

Banks Promsvyazbank, VTB, “Opening”, Soskombank and Novikombank and the VEB.RF state corporation are included in the American SDN (Specially Designated National SDN list). This means that blocking sanctions are distributed - with isolation from the dollar system, freezing assets in the United States and a ban on working with them for all American and European organizations (under the threat of secondary sanctions).

Sberbank imposed milder sanctions. It is added to the Capta list (List of Foreign Financial Institions Subject to Correspontent Account or Payble-Through Account Sances), which implies that all American financial institutions must close any Bank's correspondent accounts and begin to reject any transactions with the participation of the bank or its subsidiaries. At the same time, the assets in the jurisdiction of the United States are not frozen, and American institutions as a whole are not forbidden to conduct other cases with the bank (that is, for example, it is understood that he can acquire a license for American software).

Sector sanctions are imposed on Gazprombank, RSHB, Alfa-Bank, Moscow Credit Bank, as well as large companies: Gazprom, Gazpromneft, Transneft, Rosnelcom, RusHydro, Alrosa, Otkomflot and Russian Railways. This means that they introduce restrictions on the provision of financing and other operations with new debt obligations with the deadline for more than 14 days and new shares for American citizens and companies.

The US Department of Trade made restrictions on export to Russia of high -tech double -purpose products. The list includes semiconductors, computers, telecommunication equipment, lasers and sensors. Biden in his speech promised to block 50% high -tech exports to Russia. Now, for the export of such goods to Russia, it will be necessary to submit a special petition, but it will be approved only in exceptional cases. “Consumer communication devices” (computers, mobile phones) will not affect the sanctions, the Ministry of Trade said in a statement, but only if they are not intended for civil servants.

Personal sanctions were imposed against members of families of Russian officials close to Vladimir Putin: the sons of the ex-head of the AP Sergey Ivanov (his son, Sergei-the head of Alros), secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev and the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin. Also, the sanctions were the top managers of Sberus (first deputy chairman Alexander Vedyakhin) and VTB (deputy chairman Andrei Puchkov and Yuri Soloviev). Their property is subject to frost.

- The United States and other countries announced new sanctions against Russia. They touched mainly banks and technological exports. Let's start with banks - how hard the sanctions are it and how will they influence their work?

- The most stringent are sanctions against VTB. VTB customers will have problems. As I understand it, people who are in the USA, and Russian citizens who have long -term visas will be forbidden to have even VTB accounts. Clients will be able to use the bank cards only within Russia. This will become a problem for people who are abroad: the bank is prohibited from calculations in dollars and it will not be able to conduct international operations.

Clients of other banks that have fallen under the sanctions-Alfa-Bank and the rest-should not have problems at the moment. If the sanctions remain in the current form, this does not affect customers, this affects the banks themselves. They will not be able to receive financing [in international markets], but they did not really receive it after 2014 [the annexation of Crimea]. All the bad happened then. Without this financing, they will already survive and have already issued statements about this.

Therefore, this is not such a big blow. This is a brake on the path of development, but not a catastrophic blow. Especially in the short term. Especially taking into account the fact that the Central Bank promised them support. But so far, it is obviously not the maximum sanctions.

-If the VTB client wants to buy something, for example, in China, can he do it?

- This is an interesting moment. I'm not sure. Because I'm not sure that there is a working converting system between rubles and yuan. It can be organized by bypassing euros and dollars, but in small transactions I'm not sure that such a system exists. AliExpress [a large Chinese site of Internet trade] has a Russian representative office, that is, there will probably be no problems with them. The representative office will solve this problem - they will take money from customers in rubles and continue to solve this problem themselves.

-And what will happen to VTB investments as a securities broker?

- This is not clear to me myself. I think what people owns now, this should not limit. But for the trade in foreign papers in foreign markets, dollar calculations are needed. And this may be a problem.

- What do SDN sanctions mean? That VTB representatives simply cannot communicate with the Americans?

- In fact, all this together means that any ties of VTB with foreign counterparties will be interrupted. Even if this is not formally prohibited, no one will deal with them. And not only the Americans. This was already in 2014: the Chinese refused to deal with Russian banks because they were afraid of secondary sanctions. And for China, this is not a big loss. For him, the risks of the fact that he quarrels with America is much more important than the loss of Russian customers. In fact, VTB in complete isolation, it works only within Russia.

-It turns out that the rest of the banks- Gazprombank, RSHB, Alfa-Bank, the Moscow Credit Bank-which were not entered in the SDN, did this almost not affect?

- They have risks very much. They simply sent a black mark that they were the following, and if there is a new escalation and new sanctions, then they will follow the path of VTB.

- How can these sanctions expand?

- More than with VTB, probably, cannot be done. But even more banks can fall under the same restrictions as VTB.

- Does we threaten a shutdown from Swift ?

- America simply has no way to do this: Swift is not in their jurisdiction. Here is such a question - if you introduce the same restrictions as against VTB, this can be more significant than the disconnection from SWIFT. Swift is a communication system. You can do the same wiring by fax. This is very ineffective, but in theory it is possible. And here is just a ban on the operation. This is a more targeted story and more restrictive.

-Will the state spend some money on the support of these banks and how much can this cost?

- The Russian banking system is now a lot of profit , they just have a lot of money, so they are in a good position. I do not think that they will have any problems with capital. Still, their main market is Russian. But it is clear that everything related to export and import - all businesses who work in the foreign market will have to use other banks.

The Central Bank can provide VTB with dollar liquidity if there are problems with exchange for dollars. That is, this is a question of liquidity rather than financial support. If the sanctions are tightened, then everything can change. So far, I would not expect some infusion from the Central Bank.

- What can be said about the ban on technological exports, how will this affect consumers?

- This will very much brake the economic growth of Russia. This does not mean that we will all impoverish sharply, but this means that economically Russia will be more and more lagging behind.

So far, medium -sized sanctions have been imposed. I could expect more stringent sanctions. Perhaps they will intensify the other day if the situation goes according to a negative scenario.

- Why exactly 50% of high -tech exports want to ban Joe Biden? Is there any logic?

- I think that in the future it was possible to tighten the sanctions regime. In addition, there are some contracts that are especially important-they can be completed. For American manufacturers, for example, if they have already produced products, to sell to Russia. I think their interests were also taken into account. But I suspect that concluding new contracts will be very difficult.

-How can China be replaced by a technique that is falling due to sanctions?

- Not fully. China is also very dependent on America. They still cannot produce advanced chips. And I don’t know if they can. They are a little behind. We will receive part of the technology from China, but with a lag and will be discarded from the advanced edge of technology for five years at least. Because China is about so much behind.

- That is, at best, what China can help us?

- Yes, this is the maximum that can be expected from China. However, this cannot be called "help." When we say that China replays this to us, we must understand that it will be on less favorable conditions for us than now. China is not going to sacrifice anything for us. This applies to gas and oil - we can redirect gas to China, but at a cheaper price.

- How important is the Russian market for American importers to compete for it?

- In general, he does not play such a big role. Although for individual manufacturers this is painful and unpleasant, but it is not critical. The Russian economy is a very small part of the world economy. By American standards, this is a little money. Now inside America there is such a negative in relation to Russia that any companies that will try to lobby special conditions may bargain something, but minimally. For the sake of them they will not sacrifice anything.

- Can we say that Russia has prepared for sanctions?

- You can say so. The last seven years, starting with the Crimea, Russia has been less and less integrated into the world economy. Because of this, it developed at a short pace and constantly lagged behind in economic growth. But because of this, it became less dependent.

Relatively speaking, foreign investments came to zero. Portfolio investments were through public debt, they, apparently, will also stop or be reduced. But, of course, Russia has become much less dependent on the global economy. We see, for example, how much and how the ruble exchange rate has fallen now and how it fell in 2014 .

Now everything is different. Precisely because we were prepared. Here the main problem is that in the short term, the effect of sanctions is not so large precisely because Russia is separated from the global economy. But in the medium term, Russia will be very far behind the world economy.

- What are the prospects in Russia? Can she somehow compensate for the damage due to internal growth or neighboring countries?

- It is hard to say in numbers. But even before this situation it made sense to talk about GDP growth less than 3%. Now we will talk about whether we will kill us zero or not. The potential is very small. Somehow, we can probably reorient in export to Asian and Africa countries, but this is clearly not enough . This does not even fully compensate for the losses from the closed markets of Europe, America.

Russia will become more close to itself. But this happens without sanctions. Even if there is an opportunity to work with Russians, no one will want to work with them. Very big risks. Sanctions can be imposed on tomorrow, and partners will suffer.

Inflation will grow, income is unlikely to keep up with it. We have structural problems in the economy. The economy has been stagnated since 2014 - but in fact it started even earlier, it just overlined. The growth of income last year almost completely moved by state payments. This is not an economy.

In an economic sense, it is difficult to expect something else except the fall in the income of the population. We will live better than Iran, because the country is more originally developed. But it will be a country that works only for itself.

At the same time, no sanctions against energy carriers have yet been imposed. I think now it’s just too expensive and other countries cannot afford it. Winter because - do not have time to rebuild. But in the horizon of several months they will do everything to diversify and reduce the risks from Russian supplies. This can affect energy supplies, and it will already be serious.

- Is this a real prospect?

- A complete refusal is probably unreal, but significant reduction and complete minimization - yes, perhaps. And it will be a big blow. Something we can start selling more to China, but in general this means a fall in the economy.

- Can this happen in a few months?

- Sweeter to the summer.

- What would you advise people to do now?

“I think it's too late.” It makes no sense to remove cash or currency. I suspect that the Central Bank will do everything so that ordinary people do not affect. Therefore, I would not panic, but I would not hope for improvement either.