Dmitry Astakhov, Sputnik, Government Pool Photo via AP
- Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin shrugged off the impact of Western sanctions, NBC News reported.
- Russia’s financial system has “withstood” the “sanctions storm,” Mishustin said.
- While the ruble has recovered, the country has been flirting with default and inflation is skyrocketing.
Russia’s financial system has “withstood” the “sanctions storm” that has been imposed against the country by global leaders over its war with Ukraine, the prime minister claimed on Thursday, despite skyrocketing inflation and the threat of a Russian debt default.
“The authors of this strategy expected that the sanctions storm would destroy our economy in a few days. Their scenario didn’t come true,” Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said in an address to the Russian State Duma, according to a translation by NBC News.
“We have — withstood,” Mishustin said, according to NBC News. “Our financial system [has] withstood,” Mishustin said.
Mishustin added, “Unfriendly countries have not come up with anything better than to return to the typical pirate practice. By freezing assets, they actually robbed the country,” according to the news outlet.
After Russian President Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s war against Ukraine in late February, the US, UK, European Union, Canada, and Switzerland swiftly moved to impose harsh sanctions on Russia, including on a number of individual oligarchs, as well as Putin himself.
The unprecedented economic sanctions by Western nations have severely impacted Russia’s financial system.
The ruble was initially hit hard due to the crippling sanctions as a result of Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, but the Russian currency has managed to make a recovery thanks to heavy controls put in place by the central bank, NPR reported.
Still, the sanctions will likely wipe out over a decade of economic growth, experts told Insider’s Harry Robertson, with inflation set to rise 20% or more by the end of the year.
As of April 1, annual inflation in Russia has jumped to 16.70% — its highest since March 2015, Reuters reported, citing the economy ministry.
That’s up from 15.66% the week earlier, according to the news outlet.
Numerous companies have pulled out of Russia and its banks have been locked out of much of the global financial system.
The country is also on the verge of a default on its debt payments after the US blocked it from paying back in dollars, Insider previously reported.
In his address on Thursday, Mishustin did say that there was “no doubt” that “the current situation could be called the most difficult in three decades for Russia,” according to a translation by Reuters.
“Such sanctions were not used even in the darkest times of the Cold War,” Mishustin said, Reuters reported.
He continued, “Our financial system, the lifeblood of the entire economy, has held up,” according to Reuters. “The stock market and the ruble are stabilizing. I doubt that any other country would have withstood this. We did.”
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said while speaking to North America’s Building Trade Unions in Washington DC, “Just in one year, our sanctions are likely to wipe out the last 15 years of Russia’s economic gains.”
“And because we’ve cut Russia off from importing technologies like semiconductors and encryption security and critical components of quantum technology that they need to compete in the 21st century, we’re going to stifle Russia’s ability and its economy to grow for years to come,” Biden said.
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