Russian Central Bank Was Proactive Getting Ahead of West's Sanctions: Ex-Lehman Executive

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Russia's central bank was proactive in preparing its financial system for additional sanctions from the United States and its allies, former Lehman Brothers executive Lawrence McDonald told Sputnik.

Western countries have imposed several packages of sanctions on Russia, including its energy sector, since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine on February 24.

"Russian Central Bank policy... overall, they were pretty well ahead of this," McDonald said regarding the impact Western sanctions have had on Russia. "The central bank was pretty proactive in terms of getting ahead."

McDonald, who served as the vice president of distressed debt and convertible securities trading at Lehman Brothers, explained that Russia's central bank bought a lot of gold and sold a lot of treasuries to strengthen its financial system against sanctions.

"Russia [has] a lot more hard assets per capita than Western countries, and hard assets do well in inflationary regimes," McDonald said.

Western sanctions have caused disruptions in several supply chains, which have led to higher fuel and food prices across the European Union and the United States, driving inflation to record levels and causing cost of living to soar.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said earlier this week that Russia had faced sanctions before and the experience it had gained over the decades prepared it to successfully overcome the challenge.

Russia, the minister added, has many friends in all regions of the world, including countries of the former Soviet Union, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and it does not cut itself off from business partners in Europe and North America. He also noted that breaking mutually beneficial ties has never been the choice of the Russian government.

McDonald is co-author with Patrick Robinson of "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense," which is about the fall of Lehman Brothers and the 2008 financial crisis.