“Russia is forced to rethink all the logistics of its foreign trade, for which Turkey plays an important role,” an expert explains.

“Russia is forced to rethink all the logistics of its foreign trade, for which Turkey plays an important role“, this Saturday, October 29, confirms in Franceinfo David Dertry, lecturer in political science at the Catholic Higher Education Institute, co-researcher of INNALCO, editorRussia, the return of power“. Since the beginning of the year, between January and August, more than 700 companies with Russian capital have been established in Turkey, most of them in the wholesale and retail sector. Westerners are worried about Turkish territory being allowed to Moscow. To escape economic sanctions, Ankara refuses to join.

franceinfo: Is Russia doing everything to circumvent Western sanctions?

Territory of David: Surely. Then, Russia is forced to rethink all the logistics of its foreign trade, for which Turkey has an important role, the intermediary role. European goods are exported to Turkey and then directly re-exported to Russia. There are products under sanctions, but there are also products that are not directly exported to Russia because European companies refuse to work with Russia. So we have to make allowances: a good part of trade goes through Turkey, avoiding sanctions. But it is certain that Turkey has been in economic trouble for years, allowing Russia to restructure its foreign trade and Turkey to stabilize its economy.

Does this restructuring of Russian foreign trade testify to a pattern of effectiveness of Western sanctions?

Sanctions have affected the Russian economy since the recession, but the impact is less than we thought. For several months, the IMF [Fonds monétaire international] Each time it revised its forecasts lower than expected for the Russian economy to decline. Currently, we are at minus 3%, which is relatively low with the level of sanctions, which is unprecedented. And if the recession in the West is not far off. Later, the restructuring of foreign trade was a way for Russia to find new partners. The situation is complicated. Russia has suffered, that’s for sure, and will continue to do so. But since the first crisis in Ukraine in 2014, Russian officials have been working to make the economy even stronger.

On a completely different topic, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that nearly four million people were affected by power outages in the Kiev region. Does Vladimir Putin want to show that despite the military difficulties he is experiencing, he can make life difficult for Ukrainians?

Yes, it’s a new approach: targeting the country’s economic infrastructure. In this case, most power plants. An ultimate objective is to obtain an unquestioned surrender. This was announced by the recently appointed new head of Russian troops in Ukraine, General Sergey Surovykin. And then – in between – there are various more concrete objectives: to prevent or in any way prevent the transfer of weapons from the West to the East, to stop the Union from exporting Ukrainian electricity to the European Union. Union, then make the cost of war higher and higher for Ukraine and the West.

Russia announces it has recruited 300,000 evacuees, including 41,000 already on the ground. What do we know today about the anger movement born out of this call to mobilization?

Indeed, there was a movement of contempt in Russian society. He expressed himself through emigration to those who were able to leave. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country. But the situation inside the country has largely stabilized since then. Yesterday evening, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu officially announced the end of the mobilization period. According to him, the account is there: some have 300,000 soldiers already effectively deployed, while others are in training on Russian territory.