Ex-premier of Belgium said about the "effect less than zero" sanctions against Russia

Former Prime Minister of Belgium (1999-2008), MEP Guy Verhofstadt considered EU sanctions against RUSSIA ineffective.

“Nine packages of sanctions, and the effect is less than zero,” he wrote on Twitter, attaching to the post a table of trade indicators between Russia and EU countries published by Politico.

According to Verhofstadt, the sanctions only benefited Russia, as trade with almost all European countries increased from February to August in 2022 compared to the same period of the previous year.

In response to the military operation in Ukraine, the EU has imposed nine packages of sanctions against Russia. Some European politicians expressed dissatisfaction with the sanctions policy, noting that the negative effect of them is felt more in the EU.

The EU leadership has repeatedly assured that the effect of sanctions against Russia will be more noticeable in the medium and long term. The HEAD of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, called for strategic patience and noted that, in particular, the ban on the supply of semiconductors to Russia limits the production of high-precision missiles in the country, and thanks to the sanctions, Russia will be in scientific, economic and technological isolation.

Lithuanian European Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius said in December that the sanctions “noose is tight enough” and there is nowhere to expand restrictive measures against Russia, except for clarifications. According to him, significant progress has been made on energy security from Moscow, and the Russian economy has been damaged.

Sinkevičius stressed that the most important thing for the EU is to monitor compliance with previously imposed sanctions, make sure they are implemented and prevent Russia from circumventing restrictions with the help of "other neighboring states", then the measures "will exert the greatest pressure."

The Kremlin rejects the thesis of Russia's isolation, the authorities call the sanctions against the country illegitimate. President Vladimir Putin called the restrictive measures crazy and thoughtless, insisting that the initiators of the sanctions would face more damage than Russia. “This is the price of decisions divorced from reality and taken contrary to common sense,” he is sure.