In expert's opinion, trade sanctions could always be avoided. M.Belyaev recalled Washington's stubborn attempts to disrupt the construction of the Nord Stream-2 trunk pipeline. The reason is the total estimated cost of the project that is 9.5 billion euros. Nobody wants to miss such a considerable amount of money especially when the Western European economic growth is decreasing rapidly.
As for financial sanctions, they include a prohibition on US banks (the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) from lending non-ruble denominated funds to the Russian government and placement of Russian sovereign debt that is not denominated in rubles. Such restrictions are unlikely to have a significant impact on Russian economy, RISS expert believes.
"Russia's sovereign debt is quite small. You can always avoid new US financial sanctions. There are also various stock exchange markets that are not highly controlled by the US government. For example, RusHydro and VTB Capital placed their bonds on the Irish Stock Exchange. The most important thing is that Russia has proved that it is a more reliable partner than the US. Moscow always fulfills its obligations," he underscored.