Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that she believes some sanctions will remain on Russia even if Moscow reaches a peace deal with Kyiv, demonstrating that the US wants to keep pressure on Russia’s economy for the long term.
In the wake of Russia announcing it was withdrawing from Kherson, there has been more talk about opening up negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine. Yellen said that while some sanctions “adjustment” was possible, the US would want to maintain pressure on Russia.
“I suppose in the context of some peace agreement, adjustment of sanctions is possible and could be appropriate,” Yellen said in Indonesia, where she is attending the G20 summit. “We would probably feel, given what’s happened, that probably some sanctions should stay in place.”
The US-led sanctions campaign against Russia has largely backfired on the West, with Europe facing soaring energy prices while Moscow’s oil profits exceeded to levels higher than before the war. In an effort to curb Russia’s profits, Yellen has led a G7 push to implement a price cap on Russian oil, which is supposed to take effect in December.
The price cap could hurt the West even more as it requires the cooperation of Russia and its customers, and if Moscow retaliates by cutting production, global oil prices could skyrocket. Yellen apparently recognized some of the issues with the plan and conceded on Friday that India could continue to purchase Russian oil at whatever price it wants.
Russia has vowed to retaliate and said it wouldn’t sell oil to any countries trying to impose price caps. Yellen said Sunday that she doesn’t know what the Russians will do. “It’s hard to know what Russia’s response is going to be. I don’t think that they can really afford to shut a lot of oil in. They need the revenue,” she said.
Great, so now Yellen is happy to pronounce on foreign policy. Anti-Russian policy that is. She knows which side the bread will land on when it’s dropped.
Well, American foreign policy is in fact grounded in money, not peaceful coexistence and mutual respect.
Sanctions have not backfired, the Russian oil profits have soared as prices shot up and there were no sanctions on buying oil, while the Russians have been unable to supply their soldiers with much of what is basic equipment because of the sanctions. Claiming that sanctions have backfired quoting non sanctioned product profits while ignoring the effects on sanctioned is just biased reporting.
Not really true – it only requires that Russia and their would be customers are unable to transport and or insure the products that the Russians want to export – and neither the Russians nor the Chinese have the tanker fleets to export the amounts of Russian oil that was exported before so…
AFAIK if Moscow does many of their fields will be closed for years as they do nit presently have the technology to re-open these wells – which will get permanently ‘blocked’ if shot down during the winter.
Well if they can transport it sure – they already got a significant rebate.
I have been predicting that the sanctions would stay on even if Putin managed to force terms on the Ukrainians – simply because doing anything else would be to reward wars of territorial annexation, so at the very least the sanctions from the Crimean annexation will stay on. EU is not being hurt so badly by the sanctions that they are debating lifting even some of them – which indicated that the argument that the sanctions have backfired is not entirely true or at least not how they see it, but then the sanctions on oil are only about to start on December 5 2022.
So while Russia still occupies any part of Ukraine the sanctions or at the very least significant parts of them will have to stay on lest we want to send the signal that a country can always start a war to get sanctions placed upon them lifted. This should be no surprise.
Thank you for itemizing — most people agree/disagree without being specific.
There are items Indo not think are true, others —time will tell.
1. Sanctions have backfired by all measures.
Claims of Russia’s ability to manage its military are just that — claims without proof. Basically propaganda. We have bern told thst Russia ran out of missiles months ago. There is no evidence of any impact, As of this month Russian reserves are back to 580 billion, which is just short of the amount Russia had before $300 billion was taken from banks.
2. Russia has tanker fleets, so does China and otgers. Greece and Malta are in serious danger
of losing business and have received EU exemptions.
3. Russia has no technoligy to manage its oil fields? Russia did not depend on Western technology, as it has its own since WWI. It is amazing how easy it is to use such propaganda
nonsense, as it is assumed that a country that oioneered space flight and satelite, and supplies world with oil has no technology made in Russia. Russia did give concesdions to foreign cimpanies to drill, in which they use iwn technology. Just a different model of earning revenue.
3. Sanctions will stay as US has carved out exceptions for its own enterprises (including financial institutions).
Other countries will eventually have to deal with their own interest. Sanctions will stay, but how relevant will they be? There are too many unknowns at this time. But i think Yellen is out of her depth here.
How will it all play out, we shall see. So far, tge record of sanctions compliance globally — outside of US allies — does not exist,
So far, only Germany is severely affected. As heavily industrialised country, it will pay the price both economically and socially.
Thank you for the very civilized reply!
I’m not referring to the claims that the Russians ran out of missiles – I’m referring to the publications from the Russian media and authorities telling the soldiers to themselves bring loads of very basic equipment that the state apparently is unable to source – if you are not aware of what I’m referring to just say so and I’ll dig up the links
The evidence would not be on the financial amounts the increase in prices and the absence of sanctions on buying Russian oil and gas would lead us to this point – the evidence is in:
– the fielding of increasingly old equipment (e.g. T62’s) and having to field Iranian designed/made drones, failure in fielding most of the equipment designed post 1992.
– the drop in export volumes, the rebates on oil sold (e.g. to India and China)
They do but not of a sufficient capacity to export the volumes needed if the want their new ‘partners’ to take up the losses from selling to Europe – if this was not the case then they would have been the only ones possessing tankers before the war and there would even in that case have been massive overcapacity – this was not the case.
Not as far as I know i.e. the Russians collaborated with western companies to develop these fields – I could be wrong, but the fact that parts of the NS2 technology had to be sent to Canada to be repaired does seem to imply that the Russians are not tech self sufficient.
All I know is that there is no debate in EU on how fast we can lift the sanctions – though there are opt outs of some of the sanctions when their effect is deemed too harsh for single members (Hungary and Greece as you pointed out).
The sanction compliance across the world is actually very good – remember that there are still to this day not sanctions on buying Russian energy products – the financial sanctions are being observed by Turkey, China, India(by the banks not the government) and I think even Kazakhstan (even if they do not actually still apply to these countries) – so these countries no longer accept the Russian ‘credit card system’.
“I’m not referring to the claims that the Russians ran out of missiles – I’m referring to the publications from the Russian media and authorities telling the soldiers to themselves bring loads of very basic equipment that the state apparently is unable to source – if you are not aware of what I’m referring to just say so and I’ll dig up the links”
I would like to see these, and translation, please.
The official document:
https://vvo.ric.mil.ru/upload/site176/s0uiIlbANp.pdf
It is full of not bad advice but then also details that the military does not provide a list of vital items for e.g. the commander – for a translation of the salient part check this video at about the 5 minutes mark
As it is a 64 page long document I do not have a translation handy.
For the more general lack of equipment:
Well, if this is the case, Russia will lose. So why aren’t the Neocon Nazis exploiting this in order to sell their aggressive war?
Are you suggesting that the Russian problems equipping and supplying their forces is not being exploited?
Yes. Are you suggesting they have been? Have there been pieces in the NYT, WP, and WSJ, I’ve missed?
I do not follow the MSM regularly, but there has been articles in the Ukrainian press and among military bloggers, and loads of videos on Youtube – these channels have AFAIK more reach than most of the MSM. So the message that Russia has trouble is certainly getting out.
Stupid ideas. The West is crawling with them.
Well lets see next year – so far only the Russians and pro Russian sources are complaining or arguing about the sanctions – the west is by and large not overly worried.
Gazprom made so much income in such a short span of time that Putin clear the way for a windfall profits tax. Biden does not have the balls to do that here. He knows the hand that feeds him. Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-05/russian-lawmakers-back-windfall-tax-on-gazprom-amid-gas-rally?leadSource=uverify%20wall
Biden has advocated for a windfall oil profits tax — and has no power to implement one himself.
Yes that was rather the point – i.e. that Russia make a lot of money on the energy products while these were not sanctioned and they were willing to export them. Putin has less of a problem with windfall taxes as the Russian economy is not really a market economy any longer.
“Yellen Says Some Sanctions Will Stay on Russia Even After War in Ukraine The treasury secretary says some sanctions ‘adjustment’ could happen if there’s a peace deal.”
While Yellen and Joey Biden dither the BRIC countries are moving on from using the US dollar and they are not buying US Treasuries.
Yes, this, not nukes, is THEIR nightmare.
When the war comes to a end , Europe will find it`s self dependent on America for energy with no way out , Europe will never get from under the heel of the Americans .
Russia may be more forgiving than you think. European leaders did this to themselves. When they are removed or disciplined by their voters, relations could normalize.
Some European countries are already bucking US-agitated-for sanctions on Russian energy, and nearly all of them seem to be working their own deals for energy from the Middle East and northern Africa.
US sanctions were never very smart or effective at achieving their stated goals. More and more their power is slipping away, in tandem with the US empire’s general decline. Russia is not the only empire that’s paying a price for the war in Ukraine.
The market for energy products will again become an international market once the war is over – i.e. the lower consumption of Russian energy by e.g. EU will lead to China, India and presumably others taking advantage of cheaper Russian oil/gas – that in turn will lead to the buyers of Russian energy buying less OPEC oil and thus lower the price of oil – that means that EU can buy OPEC energy cheaper.
What will be lost is the somewhat cheaper Russian non liquified gas (pipeline gas) – but that is not seen as a major problem in EU – if it was the EU is applying enough fees to the energy sources that they could lower the price simply by lowering this effective ‘tax’ on energy.
Give her the Regime Change Beanie with the propeller on top. Oh, and don’t forget the complimentary tee-shirt!
Since when is the illegal federal reserve a part of our military?
More belligerence planned for the future. So, the solution to the problem is to continue doing what causes the problem. This bitch is brilliant.
My sentiments about Yellen, exactly!
Same dog barking up the wrong tree.
Next year, is the year of negotiation and preparing for war in 2024.
That seems mean, plus it feeds Russian paranoia maybe they have a point?
So she says the US won’t make peace after the Ukraine War.
Probably true. Ukraine will collapse, the US will lose, and then the US will behave as it did after losing in Vietnam and Afghanistan — pure spite.
Give her the Regime Change Beanie with the propeller on top. Oh, and don’t forget the complimentary tee-shirt!