‘Russia Considers ‘Cyprus Scenario’ For Confiscating Deposits’

• 29.11.2024, 15:21

Russians do not have many options left.

The Russian ruble exchange rate is rapidly falling, despite all the efforts of the Central Bank of Russia. Have serious economic problems begun in the Russian Federation? Or are these temporary difficulties? Charter97.org talked about this and more with Ukrainian politician, former Verkhovna Rada deputy Boryslav Bereza:

— This is not the beginning of serious economic problems, this is their continuation. It is becoming increasingly difficult to dampen the situation in Russia. We have already seen the surges that were earlier — the burden on the budget, investments in the military-industrial complex. The Russian economy is not coping, energy prices are falling, the budget is receiving less money.

All this leads to exactly this situation. It's just that the sanctions and processes that have been going on for several years are starting to give more, over time the effect will be even stronger. The head of the Central Bank Nabiullina recently stated at one of her press conferences that a major crisis awaits the Russian economy in the second half of 2025.

I really hope that she is wrong, and this will happen not in the second half, but in the first, because we can already see that the efforts that Nabiullina and other economists are making are not producing a positive result for Russia, and we cannot but be pleased with this.

Moreover, we are already seeing that the Central Bank of the Russian Federation is forced to suspend trading in the dollar. It has already done this before in order to freeze the situation and stabilize the ruble exchange rate. So far, this has not helped much, in addition, the growing galloping inflation and the rate that is changing show only one thing: Russia has ceased to control the situation, and at the moment is simply trying to minimize its losses and problems.

— Will these economic problems somehow affect Russians? Or should we expect nothing from them?

— You shouldn’t expect anything from the Russians, you don’t expect jelly to suddenly turn into borscht. This is impossible, jelly can simply turn sour, spoil. Well, where else can the Russians spoil? Another thing is that at the moment we are observing interesting processes.

In the same Russia, they are considering the Cyprus option as one of the potential scenarios. This is when a certain limit is set on the account, and everything else is confiscated. For example, in each account that has more than a million rubles, one million remains for the Russian, and everything else is “stabilized for financial support of the state’s economic system and the stability of banks.”

This was done in Cyprus, and then, by the way, the citizens of Russia who invested money in the economy of Cyprus suffered the most. Now their time has come to face the Cyprus scenario in Russia. Therefore, perhaps this will cause a certain negative reaction and launch some internal scenarios, but globally nothing will change. In addition, we must understand that Russians will live worse, and the government will feel virtually no pressure on itself. Although, we must not forget about the “black swans” that can fly into Russia. And then we can see a Russian riot — absolutely crazy, merciless and unpredictable. Of course, we would like this to happen as soon as possible, but so far there are no markers that would indicate this.

Another scenario that can also happen is a deterioration in the standard of living of Russians. I have recently analyzed what is happening with mortgages in Russia, what is happening with product substitution, and I can say that it is not possible to completely replace Western goods. A special problem is the substitution of industrial areas, namely machine tools, spare parts, spare parts for aircraft, Western cars. We see that in Russia, substitution is happening precisely with Chinese cars on a mass level. And given that the dollar is getting more expensive, the euro is getting more expensive, and the ruble is depreciating, all these things are becoming even more expensive and inaccessible to Russians.

Therefore, everything points to only one thing — the war is making life worse for Russians, but there is no point in counting on a riot today. There is something else to count on: Putin's entourage, which is also losing money, will think about whether they need this dwarf dictator, who is causing losses and problems within the state, the oligarchy that he himself installed.

And another interesting point — in the near future, Putin will either tighten the screws very strongly, because this is the only option to contain the discontent around him. Then we will see repressions, something like 1937-38 in Russia, when Stalin carried out repressions precisely to intimidate his entourage, to keep everyone in check.

Or we will see another round of escalation, and around it an attempt will be built not by fear, but by uniting people around himself. Like, “look, Russia is in danger, the West is a threat to us, either we survive or we die.” In general, something with such pathos will be offered to Russians. They have few options. In any case, they will live worse, although not for long.

— Can serious economic difficulties force Putin to stop the war in the future?

— Look,Putin himself is interested in taking a pause now, not stopping the war, not ending it, but taking a pause precisely to overcome economic problems. Of course, the economy is the main driving force. But I suspect that the Russians will sooner die of hunger than Putin agrees to simply suspend the war because of this. But the fact that this could be one of the reasons for the slowdown in the offensive, as well as one of the reasons that could push Putin to agree to negotiations - yes, such a scenario is quite likely.