According to expert assessments of the World Bank RDNA2, funds in the amount of more than 414 billion US dollars are needed to restore Ukraine.
The confiscation of the assets of the russian federation and its residents should become the main resource for compensating Ukraine for the destruction and damage caused.
To date, it has actually been possible to confiscate less than 0.1% of all assets under sanctions in connection with russia’s military aggression on the territory of Ukraine.
Yaroslav Sydorovych, senior expert of the ANTS Network project “russian Assets as the Source to Restore the Ukrainian Economy”, noted that our efforts should be aimed at a significant expansion of economic and financial sanctions, in particular when the EU countries adopt the new 11th package.
ANTS experts within the framework of the project “russian Assets as the Source to Restore the Ukrainian Economy” with the support of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) are conducting expert-analytical studies on the economic effectiveness of the introduced sanctions.
Unfortunately, the main macroeconomic indicators of russia do not inspire much optimism regarding the reduction of the economic potential of the aggressor country for the possibility of continuing a bloody war.
For the russian economy, 2022 did not turn out to be a catastrophic year, although after the introduction of sanctions, many of its business connections and business processes were disrupted. Preparing for a full-scale war and anticipating further sanctions by Western states, the russian authorities began working on measures to ensure the stability of the russian financial system and economy after the introduction of large-scale sanctions starting in 2014.
At the end of February – the beginning of March 2022, the situation in the economy of the russian federation was very tense. However, the authorities of the russian federation took a set of measures to support the economy and reduce the sensitivity of the financial sector to external sanctions.
As a result, the russian economy suffered minor losses in 2022.
The surplus of the current account of the balance of payments of the russian federation in 2022 amounted to $233.0 billion, which exceeded the figure of 2021 by almost 2 times. A decisive role in such a change was played by the growth of the positive balance of the trade balance.
The external debt of the russian federation decreased by $101.8 billion from the end of 2021 and amounted to $380.5 billion as of December 31, 2022.
The unemployment rate decreased from 4.3% in December 2021 to 3.7% in December 2022.
After a sharp rise in the first week of March 2022 on the exchange market, the ruble rate rose to 137.85 rubles. for the US dollar, the Russian ruble for 2022 nominally strengthened against the US dollar by 5.3%, against the euro – by 10.0%, against the yuan – by 15.1%.
After a sharp jump in inflation in russia in April 2022, the prices of goods and services decreased to 17.8%, and according to the results of 2022, annual inflation amounted to 11.9%.
Such disappointing for Ukraine are the official data on changes in the state of russia’s macroeconomics for 2022, the year of the full-scale invasion of Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine, the year when “hellish sanctions” began to take effect.
Conclusion for action: all democratic countries need to significantly strengthen sanctions on all sectors of the economy of the russian federation, introduce a full trade embargo in order to reduce the potential to continue waging war against Ukraine and the democratic world in general.
The project “russian Assets as the Source to Restore the Ukrainian Economy” aims to organize a number of other activities that will contribute to raising public awareness of the importance of confiscating Russian assets for the restoration of the Ukrainian economy.
