The war in Ukraine has shaken economic activity in Europe and the world in the few weeks since 24 February 2022. It has already broken its cracks in all the fields it was trying to resurrect from the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the biggest of the last hundred years. But is the economy, besides being harmed by weapons, the most important weapon of this war?

Kurt Cobb, an American energy specialist, writes in Resource Insights: “The III comes. World War, but it's not as we expected. We are not neglected: the battlefield of this war covers the whole world and is eminently economic. When Russia has attacked Ukraine, the other major powers have not sent their soldiers and tanks, but have organised a general economic war as never seen.” To what extent can it cause damage and who will suffer the most?

The economic sanctions imposed against Russia for what is called the West (US, EU, Australia, Japan…) have not started in February 2022. Eight years earlier, in 2014 Russia invaded Ukraine and conquered Crime by imposing a large number of sanctions on Russian authorities, companies and personalities who responded by banning many imports from their rivals. According to Wikipedia, the first sanctions mainly affected Russia, with the Russian ruble quickly collapsing, but also the countries of the European Union suffered losses.

Following this year’s invasion, the Russians have faced the whole range of economic sanctions. Several oligarchs and other Russian citizens are expropriated from property. Western countries and those that have joined them have banned Russia from selling all gas and oil technology, such as any electronic equipment, technology, etc. It can use the army. It has also been forbidden to grant loans to these energy companies and to Russian State banks. The Russian Central Bank has hijacked its world reserves of $400 billion in foreign currency. Russia has been expelled from the SIFT system which channels relations between all banks in the world. The list is endless.

“Russia has also been launched with a financial atomic bomb,” explains Sergei, former Russian deputy finance minister of Aleksashen. Moreover, the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, has stated that the European Union will "push the Russian economy to the point of collapse". BBC editor-in-chief Faisal Islam says that these measures are more than the usual “type of economic war” penalties, the aim of which is to defeat Russia in a deep recession, leaving the banks with no money and provoking an inflection of AIDS.

Economic history expert Nicholas Mulder recently published The Economic Weapon: the rise of sanctions as a tool of modern war. Mulder says that, after the First World War, the imperialist powers began to use economic sanctions. The then US President, Woodrow Wilson, said with sorrows that “they are more terrible than war. (…) They are a terrible remedy, they do not produce a single death outside the country that suffers the boycott and there is no modern nation that can cope with such pressure.”

In the ATTAC magazine, a reference of the alterglobalist movement, economist Michael Roberts also wrote about the economic war against Russia: “I am reminded of medieval sieges, how cities dominated with hunger, without military action.” But in a globalized world, economic punishment is a very modern weapon, like chemical weapons or nuclear bombs. Will they manage to give in to the Russians?”

Roberts believes that the Russian economy is sinking. Quoting the estimates of the International Finance Institute, this year it falls by 15% “and this has not been seen in Russia since the 1990s, its economy would go back to levels twenty years ago or earlier.” The International Monetary Fund calculates the recession to the Russians by 10%. Eurasia Forum, passionate about neoliberal globalisation, has claimed: “EE.UU. And their allies cause enormous economic damage to Russia without a single shot.” The Westerners, however, should not touch the bells too soon: “If Russia – says Kurt Cobb – is locked in a corner, it may think that it has no alternative but to further strengthen the military war against enemies, forcing enemies to negotiate with the fear of nuclear attacks and reaching an agreement to end the economic war.”

In this war, Moon of Alabama, which clearly makes Russia right, has calculated the opposite: More Sanctions On Russia Will Destroy Europe (“More sanctions on Russia will destroy Europe itself”). In his view, the economic counter-attack in Moscow has been launched with the decision to collect crude oil, gas, wheat, potash, titanium, aluminium, palladium, neon, etc. It sells to the world. “From now on, EE.UU. And the European Union will have to pay as much energy as it takes and its economies will be in recession. (…) Joe Biden asks Europe to commit suicide to support American industry. (…) With these measures and the disasters of the sanctions imposed on Russia by EE.UU. and the EU at European level, the situation of their economies will lead to regime changes in some European countries.”

Ukraine’s own war, and the dynamics of sorrows and contradictions – what must happen to Europe? The multinational consulting firm McKinsey has produced two hypotheses. At best, the end of the mild war and sanctions do not extend Russia’s energy to exports, the European Gross Domestic Product this year would be 0.0%, 2.1% in 2023 and 4.8% in 2024. But if the war were to continue, aggravating the refugee crisis in Europe and punishing Russia even more, then we would be in recession, both in 2022 and in 2023.

In many parts of the world, Ukraine and Russia, one of the largest producers of staple food from the creatures of Ukraine and Russia, have already caused major problems in getting the bread of every day. The consequences in this field will be further aggravated in the coming months, as Russia is one of the major powers of chemical fertilizers: it produces 23% of the ammonia consumed by the world, 14% of the water, 21% of the potassium… The peasants of the Basque Country must also note this.

Daily meals will be arranged in the short term, but the economic war that the West has organised on Russia is a much deeper change at the geopolitical level. Liberal economist Martin Wolf from the Financial Times said: “The coincidence of war, severe supply problems and high inflation causes destabilization, as the world learned in the 1970s. (…) In the long term two blocks will probably be organised with a large gap, in globalisation we will face quickly and the interests of companies will be sacrificed to geopolitics”. Europe, caught up in the geopolitical competition of the USA and Russia.