Amid rising tensions in Ukraine and as a reaction to the Crimean crisis in particular, the European Union followed the U.S. example and imposed its own sanctions on Russia. On March 16 the EU has frozen assets and imposed travel bans on Russian officials and private banks. Just four days later, Russia announced a blacklist of EU and U.S. officials. The West is aiming at hurting Russian economy. But, will the West perhaps feel more pain from political sanctions?
Two years ago bilateral trade flow between the European Union and Russia constituted 22% of Russian economic output and only 3% of EU GDP. It means that the impact of economic sanction will hurt Russia more, however, the impact on Europe is by no means negligible. According to analysts' projections, sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia have a 47-52% possibility of a success and this percentage can be improved in case the U.S. joins the sanctions.
In contrast, sanctions imposed by Russia have a 39% chance to succeed. This is less than European sanctions, however, the percentage is still very convincing. Moreover, keeping in mind the fact that Russia needs less internal coordination to impose counter sanctions, the percentage can be even higher. At the same time, costs that Europe will have to pay will be unevenly distributed between EU members, hence, regional inequality can increase significantly in the coming months.
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