The Russian economy is growing three times faster than the eurozone economy, indicating a clear failure of Western sanctions against Moscow over the war in Ukraine.
According to the French investment company Amundi, reported by British media on Thursday, Russia’s GDP will grow by 1.5 percent in 2024, while growth expectations for the euro zone economy next year do not exceed 0.5 percent.
The French fund manager said that Russian commercial imports and exports remained virtually unaffected by Western sanctions, while sharply rising energy prices had left huge losses in the euro zone.
Amundi said that after losing access to Western markets, Russian companies have succeeded in redirecting most trade towards the BRICS partners, namely Brazil, India, China and South Africa, as well as to Turkey and Kazakhstan.
Amundi is Europe’s largest fund manager by assets. The company’s investment director, Vincent Mortier, said at a press conference in Paris that these countries are now benefiting greatly from strengthening their trade with Russia.
Mortier said the reality was that US-led sanctions had backfired and that “Europe had suffered directly and strongly” from the war in Ukraine.
The CIO of the French fund manager also said that this shows that Western sanctions are ineffective. He added: “This means that the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia – the main developed countries – are unable to impose sanctions on a country effectively… We can regret that, but it is a reality.”
Mortier said the sanctions have had some impact on some Russian individuals and entities whose assets have been frozen over the past 20 months.
Russia began its military campaign in Ukraine in February 2022 after Kiev failed to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements and Moscow’s recognition of the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin said one of the goals of the “special military operation” was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the United States and its European allies have supplied Ukraine with weapons and ammunition worth tens of billions of dollars, and imposed unprecedented economic sanctions on Moscow.
The United States also increased arms sales to NATO countries in 2021, compared to 2022, as the war prompted member states to buy more weapons.
Analysts say that military spending by the United States and its allies has risen to an unprecedented level since the end of World War II.