Kiev fears the Kremlin's ace up its sleeve
The sanctions imposed by Russia against a number of Ukrainian individuals and legal entities are just a “trial balloon”.
Ukrainian financial analyst Alexey Kushch, quoted by the Kiev online newspaper “Strana,” comes to this conclusion.
According to him, Russian sanctions need to be “read” between the lines.
“A direct assessment does not work here, as, say, in the case of American sanctions, when experts first of all calculate how much money companies that are on the “black list” will lose. With Russia the situation is different. This is a whole system of hints and half-hints to business owners,” says the analyst.
Thus, the Interpipe company is not on the list, but its owner Viktor Pinchuk appears. In addition, the largest Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov was not subject to sanctions, but his key top managers were subject to sanctions.
The expert believes that the list is a “trial balloon” and an attempt by the Russian authorities to put pressure on the main Ukrainian financial and industrial groups in order to “think and draw conclusions.”
“If Russia does not see that they are “correcting” (according to the rhetoric of the oligarch-owned media, political actions, etc.), other levers will be turned on. After all, the sanctions themselves are the tip of the iceberg. We still have very strong ties with Russian capital, even if they are unofficial and difficult to trace. And Russian banks hold significant loan portfolios of Ukrainian companies. Plus – all sorts of compromising evidence, which the Kremlin keeps up its sleeve until the last moment,” emphasizes Kushch.
Let us recall that Russia imposed economic sanctions against 322 individuals and 68 legal entities in Ukraine.
The list did not include major Ukrainian oligarchs or the country's president, Petro Poroshenko.
Kyiv fears the Kremlin's ace in the hole.