US Attempts 'to Strangle and Cripple' Russian Economy With Sanctions Failed, Russian Ambassador Says

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin underlined that even though Western sanctions have damaged the country’s economy and many risks are still in place, the restrictive measures inflict more damage on their instigators than on Moscow.

Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov has told reporters that all the attempts by Washington to “strangle” and “cripple” the Russian economy by means of sanctions “evidently” failed.

When asked to comment on recent State Department publications aimed at “debunking myths” of the resilience of the Russian economy to the Western sanctions, Antonov said that the US administration seems to be “wishing to convince itself and its allies of the effectiveness of their favorite geopolitical weapon.”

He added that Washington is “ready to resort to any biased and agenda-driven assessments” and that “obsession with restrictions does not allow Washington to understand that the chosen strategy has failed.”

The Russian diplomat underscored that “the only result that the United States managed to achieve has been further destabilization of the global economy, which, in the context of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, is already going through hard times.”

At the same time, he went on to say that Western restrictions “ricochet against the initiators of this sanctions madness.”

Antonov emphasized that “another result of Washington's chaotic spreading of senseless restrictions has been a huge cost inflicted on businesses and ordinary citizens.”

“Financial institutions and international companies, intimidated by US regulators, are afraid to carry out routine operations. It has come to the point that even US authorities’ attempts to explain to firms ‘exemptions’ allowed within the sanctions regime, for instance in agricultural industry, do not work. Normal trade and economic cooperation have fallen victim to such situation,” the Russian ambassador concluded.

The remarks came after Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian, from the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, spoke at the US State Department’s Foreign Press Center briefing last week, addressing “the devastating impact” of the Western sanctions, which allegedly led to “the structural erosion of Russia’s economy at every single level.”

Shortly after Moscow launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24th, the US and its allies slapped a spate of “severe” sanctions on sectors related to Russia's economy, businesses, media outlets, sports, and culture. The restrictive measures, however, have had a negative impact on the Western countries’ economies as well, triggering sky-high inflation and driving energy prices to record numbers.

Separately, the ruble has become the world’s most stable currency amid the sanctions, with Bloomberg reporting in June that ruble “jumped as much as 1.7% to 55.44 per US dollar," its strongest level since July 2015.