KIEV, November 2. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko’s major sponsors have been blacklisted by Russia, President of the Ukrainian Analytical Center, economic expert Alexander Okhrimneko told TASS on Friday.
"If we take a look at the names of individuals and companies the blacklist contains, we will see that Poroshenko’s all major sponsors are there," he said. In this regard, Okhrimenko mentioned Yuri Kosyuk, the owner and chairman of the board of directors of the Mironovsky Khleboprodukt group of companies, billionaire Viktor Pinchuk and owner of the Kharkov Tractor Plant Alexander Yaroslavsky. "The blacklist particularly concerns agriculture, while all our big agricultural companies are linked to Poroshenko one way or another," the expert added. In his view, sanctions on these big businessmen "are a tough signal to them to think about who they support."
At the same time, the expert noted that Russia had blacklisted very few businessmen and politicians close to Ukraine’s Opposition Bloc, while sanctions against former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, who presents herself as an opposition leader, were of political nature.
While speaking about the economic effect Russia’s retaliatory sanctions would have on Ukraine, Okhrimenko said that "there will be no dramatic consequences." "Ukraine’s exports to Russia declined by 60% in 2018 compared to 2013. And now, sanctions have been imposed on the food sector, while Ukraine stopped to directly supply food products to Russia a long time ago. At the same time, they are exported through Belarus, so I don’t know how it will work now," the expert added.
However, according to Okhrimenko, Ukraine’s chemical industry may face serious issues. "As for the chemical industry, restrictions are mutual: Ukraine earlier banned the imports of mineral fertilizers from Russia and now Russia has responded to that. So the chemical industry will definitely face a decline," he said. As for restrictions concerning the Kharkov Tractor Plant, he said that "it is barely alive" so sanctions were unlikely to have much of an effect on the facility.
Russia’s retaliatory sanctions
On November 1, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a government order implementing a presidential decree aimed at introducing "economic restrictions following Ukraine’s unfriendly actions towards Russian individuals and companies." The document imposes restrictions on 322 Ukrainian individuals and 68 companies. "Special economic measures against Ukrainian individuals and entities include freezing non-cash funds, non-documentary securities and property in Russia and banning the transfer of outside Russia," the cabinet said in a statement.
Russia’s sanctions will particularly apply to Ukrainian Constitutional Court judges, Verkhovna Rada (parliament) members, including its speaker Andrei Parubiy, as well as to big businessmen, presidential administration officials, other high-ranking state officials, big companies’ CEOs and entities controlled by the country’s biggest businessmen.
At the same time, the Russian cabinet stressed that it "reserves the right to remove these special economic restrictions in case Ukraine lifts sanctions imposed on Russian citizens and entities.".