Borrell urged Europe to "be patient" and pointed to Russia's losses from sanctions

The consequences of sanctions for Russia may not be too noticeable at the moment, but in the long term they will prove their effectiveness, so Europe must show strategic patience, said the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, in his blog on the EU website.

“We have no other choice. To allow Russia to gain the upper hand would be to allow it to destroy our democracies and the very foundation of the international rules-based world order,” he wrote.

Borrell notes that some of the consequences of the sanctions are visible now, but they will be fully visible in the long term. In particular, according to him, the ban on the supply of semiconductors to Russia limits the production of high-precision missiles in the country. The politician noted that this is of decisive importance in the fighting in Ukraine. In the medium term, thanks to the sanctions , Russia will be in scientific, economic and technological isolation, Borrell said.

Borrell said earlier that the rejection of Russian energy resources, which Europe is striving for, creates serious difficulties for the EU countries, but this is “the price we must pay to protect our democracy and international law, and we are taking the necessary measures to solve these problems in solidarity” .

He noted that the Russian side miscalculated, thinking that the EU would not dare to impose serious sanctions because of its dependence on its energy resources. In addition, Borrell said that Russia in the field of technology is more dependent on the United States and Europe than on China.

Since the end of February, after the start of the military operation in Ukraine, the EU has imposed six packages of sanctions against Russia, including a partial oil embargo , a freeze on the assets of the Central Bank, a ban on financial transactions, sectoral restrictions, and personal sanctions against the political elite and businessmen.

The Russian authorities consider Western sanctions illegitimate. President Vladimir Putin called them “crazy and thoughtless” and also said that only the direct losses of the European Union “from the sanctions fever” for the coming year could exceed $400 billion. “This is the price of decisions divorced from reality and taken contrary to common sense,” Putin said. .