After Prime Minister Medvedev accused the US of declaring a trade war with its latest sanctions against Russia, experts weigh up how much damage each country might inflict on the other and what Moscow can do to dodge the blows.
Labeled “draconian” by both sides, the White House sanctions over Russia’s alleged involvement in the poisoning of the Skripals in the UK in March will be applied in two steps. On August 22, an initial restriction on exports of security-sensitive goods will come into force and, unless Russia assures the US that it has stopped using chemical weapons (which it denies in the first instance), more severe restrictions will be introduced 90 days later. These include a potential moratorium on national carrier flights to the United States and an almost complete import ban.
Dmitry Medvedev on Friday promised a “political and economic reaction,” but what can Russia do?
Gilbert Doctorow, a Brussels-based Russian affairs analyst, says that the US, particularly with the second proposed round, is threatening to “go for the jugular” in a way it has not during any of the previous acts of sanction dating back to the Crimea secession in 2014. Which means that Russia’s response has to be more than symbolic.
“There are a number of measures that it can implement to hurt the US rather badly. One is a cut-off of delivery of Russian made rocket engines used in the US space program,” he told RT. “There are also such things as prohibition of export to the US of rare and strategic metals essential to all kinds of industry, or raising manyfold the charges for use of Russian airspace or, alternatively, simply prohibiting US civil aviation from using Russian airspace.”
But Doctorow and Vladimir Vasiliev, from Moscow’s Institute for US and Canadian Studies, each agree that Russia is more likely to take a wait-and-see approach than to try to get the first shot in.
“A lot will depend on the US sanctions, which have not been thought through.
