According to the ministry, since the start of the new round of sanctions following the war in Ukraine, the total economic damage inflicted on Europe is estimated at more than $1.8 trillion.
In a statement, Moscow emphasized that “the sanctions were not intended to break Russia, but they broke Europe” and that European countries are currently struggling with economic recession, energy crisis and rising inflation; Consequences that Russia believes are the result of Brussels’ hasty decisions to fully comply with US sanctions.
The European Union has imposed more than 13 sanctions packages on Moscow since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. These sanctions have targeted the energy, financial, technology, transportation industries, and hundreds of Russian individuals and entities. However, many Western economic institutions have also warned in recent reports that these policies have come at a heavy cost for Europe, including rising energy prices after restrictions on Russian gas purchases, slowing economic growth in Germany and France, and a decline in the competitiveness of European industries compared to the US and China.
In contrast, Russia believes that it has been able to manage the economic pressure caused by the sanctions by increasing energy exports to Asia, strengthening trade with China and India, and changing financial channels. The Russian Foreign Ministry considers this a sign of “the ineffectiveness of the West’s maximum pressure strategy.”