Lithuania about sanctions

Economist Boris Lithuania published in Livejournal a large text (in two parts ) about sanctions and the possible consequences of their introduction to the Russian economy. In the first part of the text, a detailed classification of sanctions is also given.

Some fragments:

“ How easy it is to understand, in our world there are economic sanctions either American or none. Some exceptions may be special cases of blockade of very small territorially isolated countries by their unfriendly neighbors, but such cases are not frequent, plus a direct blockade is still more than just traditional sanctions. <...>

{ American sanctions } Expently represented improvisation. They were not prepared or agreed in advance, so they were introduced and continued to be introduced gradually, each time inventing the filling of the next round. <...>

The thorough selectivity of these sanctions with attempts to minimize their significance is striking. This is especially evident in the decree of March 11, where the emphasis is on such absolutely insignificant things as the import of Russian alcohol, diamonds, fish, and the export of luxury items. <...>

About the same thing has to be said about official and private sanctions that make it difficult or simply prohibiting the transfer of money from Russia, including relatively small amounts (relatively speaking - within a few tens of thousands of dollars). Again, the only practical results of these sanctions are - a) saving currencies for Russian banks and the Central Bank, b) a blow to Russian citizens living abroad, primarily recent emigrants, among which the percentage of Putin’s policy is especially high. At the same time, these prohibitions do not entail absolutely no negative consequences for the Russian government . <...>

The experience of recent history gives us, it seems to me, a completely unambiguous lesson. The rulers (government) can seriously take into account the likelihood of economic sanctions in the course of making their most important decisions, including decisions on the beginning of armed confrontation. But after these decisions are adopted, economic sanctions themselves do not lead to their revision. On the contrary, propaganda can easily use them as an explanation of difficulties, as an argument in favor of rallying, etc. "