MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/. Secondary sanctions imposed by the US and the EU against third country companies due to their collaboration with Russia will not affect Moscow’s interaction with its partners save for making it more expensive, experts questioned by TASS say.
The market provides opportunities to circumvent sanctions and cooperation will therefore continue but at a higher cost for Russia, Deputy Director of the research center with the Russian Higher School of Economics Dmitry Suslov said. "I believe cooperation will continue. Somebody will probably exercise more caution in this regard but it is beneficial to cooperate with Russia, even given that sanctions raise the price of such cooperation. Accordingly, Russia will have to pay more to intermediaries for the risks they take," the expert said.
The influence of the US and its restrictions will weaken as Russia and its partners switch to payments in national currencies and avoid the dollar, Suslov noted. "The US believes that this will eventually make the Russian economy less competitive over the long term by increasing the cost of interaction with foreign partners for Russia, by increasing the cost of bypassing sanctions. This is what their focus is on now," he continued. "On top of that, the less control the US has over the global economy, the more Russia and its partners will shift to, for example, national currencies in trade, the less effective Western sanctions will be, meaning Russia and its partners can to a greater degree simply ignore the US sanctions policy, because the US sanctions policy largely relies on the dollar," the expert added.
Russia and its partners will be able to manage the situation and continue interaction, Program Director of the Valdai Discussion Club Oleg Barabanov said. "These are not the first sanctions imposed on Russia’s partners. This process will not stop and will continue but it is clear at the same time that economic efforts in the environment of sanctions is a very dynamic process and judging from how quickly it was set up by Russian companies, I believe they and their partners will find ways out of the situation here," he noted.
On February 23, the US Treasury released new anti-Russian sanctions targeting individuals and companies from Russia and other countries.