Vadim Gorshenin: Boomerangs of sanctions war are unpredictable

What influence will anti-Russian sanctions show on different countries, their economies and political stability? It appears that Western sanctions have become a formidable destructive weapon not only for Russia, but for all other states — this is a boomerang weapon in the hands of a fool.

Western sanctions are chaotic and ill-conceived, Vadim Gorshenin, the head of the Pravda.Ru media holding believes.

The newly announced sanctions will boomerang to many countries of the world in the upcoming weeks, and it is impossible to predict consequences.

For instance, one can predict difficulties for many former Soviet republics whose citizens live and work in Russia to support their families in their homelands.

Yesterday I read somewhere that Uzbeks experienced difficulties with bank transfers. Today I was told that Moldovan banks stopped accepting ruble transfers. The current dollar and euro exchange rate in Russia makes their work in Russia absolutely useless.

• On the one hand, this is a possible solution to the problem of illegal immigration in Russia, as many of them will have to go home.
• On the other hand, the financial flow to former Soviet republics from Russia is going to stop, and this will affect their economies considerably.

The migrants will retarget their anger to their governments that supported the sanctions against Russia. For the West, all this will rock the political situation in the countries, the governments of which it controls.

Terminated contracts with Russian contractors will lead to unexpected consequences too. It is not only contractual and financial obligations that are gong to be terminated — confidentiality clauses of those agreements and trade secrets will be terminated as well.

This will release a lot of sensitive information onto the Russian market.

Apparently, these are the consequences that Western officials had in their minds when they said that anti-Russian sanctions would affect their economies as well.

But that's not all, of course. Boomerangs are now flying in all directions. It appears that the West has decided to respond chaotically, without calculating everything that may happen afterwards.