Published on :
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday March 29 that international sanctions targeting Moscow for its offensive in Ukraine “may” have negative medium-term consequences for his country’s economy, after having nevertheless affirmed in recent months that the Russia was adapting to this new situation. Interview.
Agathe Demarais is director of global forecasts at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the independent research center of The Economist magazine.
RFI : The Russian president talks about the medium-term consequences for his country’s economy. What effects is he talking about and what is it really about ?
Agatha Demarais: The effects that Vladimir Putin talks about are actually well documented, but indeed he spent the previous year trying to deny them.
In reality, it seems hard to deny the fact that Western sanctions will have a significant effect on the Russian economy in the medium and long term, depriving it of access to the technologies that Russia needs to extract and then export gas. and oil, but also by depriving Russia of access to Western technologies since Western companies were the big suppliers of technology and innovation in Russia, too.
One of the issues that will be difficult for the Russian authorities to resolve is the exodus of part of the workforce the most qualified following the invasion of Ukraine. And finally, all of this is on top of great demographic challenges, low productivity growth and sluggish growth since long before the invasion of Ukraine began, and the sanctions against Russia will only accentuate this phenomenon.
► To listen also: How do sanctions affect Russia?
This is the first time that Vladimir Putin publicly admits that many business sectors in Russia are affected. Why does he do it now ?
This is a big question and it is indeed a surprise. We don’t have the answer to this question, only he knows why he makes his statements. But he actually joins the consensus of international economists who have been saying for quite a long time that the sanctions are having an effect on the Russian economy and that this effect will be particularly important in the medium and long term.
This is probably part of the Russian strategy. That is to say that the Russian power made economic misinformation a tool in its information war against Western countries and their sanctions. The idea is to say that the sanctions do not work, since the Russian economy is doing very well, using statistics that are in fact unreliable.
For example, when you look at unemployment statistics, indeed unemployment in Russia is around 4% and has remained stable since the start of the war in Ukraine. But what you need to know is that Russian companies almost never lay off workers. When they encounter difficulties, they give unpaid leave to their employees, so there is no increase in unemployment but employees who are not paid, even if they are in fact Unemployed.
Isn’t this the first time that the Russian authorities have used statistics as a means of communication?
For the Russians, statistics are an important disinformation tool. Afterwards, what is clear is that a certain number of economic sectors in Russia are in a very difficult situation. One thinks in particular of the automobile sector, which is a perfect illustration of the situation. We saw a collapse in automobile production last year in Russia, of about 70%.
For what ? Because there has been a collapse in demand from households who generally buy cars when they are optimistic. In addition, there is a lack of access to Western components to build cars, so those which are still built in Russia today are a bit like a return to the Lada, they are without ABS and without airbags. .
► To read also: Russia: some signs that may indicate an economic deterioration