Ragnarok Part V--Ripples and Consequences

Kim Zigfeld writes at PJ Media:

Before Western leaders could even finalize their plans for economic sanctions on Russia in response to its shocking, unprovoked aggression in Ukraine, the Russian economy had already entered freefall. Putin’s crude blunder in Crimea is the worst Russian foreign policy mistake of the Putin era, and his country may never recover from it.

As trading opened on the Russian stock market Monday morning, stocks entered freefall, shedding over ten percent of their value.

The Russian currency, the ruble, went right down with the market, striking a new low against the U.S. dollar.

And the losses by the ruble were actually vastly understated. In order to keep the currency from totally imploding, which would in turn send Russian prices into devastating inflation, the Kremlin entered the currency markets and spent upwards of $10 billion in already-depleted hard-currency reserves buying its own rubles to artificially inflate their value.

In other words, the Russian economy began to look very much as it did in 2009, when a Western economic downturn reduced demand for oil, which sent prices downward and caused the Russian economy to collapse.

Western economic sanctions will have the same effect on Russia, but will bite even harder than the 2009 crisis because they will be specifically targeted to damage the Russian economy. And these sanctions haven’t even been finalized yet, much less implemented, but already Russia is feeling their effects. Russian economic growth had already shriveled to nothing before Russia’s wanton aggression in Ukraine took place, so the country was in no position to sustain an economic hit of this kind.

So the smart Russian money is getting out while the getting is good.