Vladimir Milov, a former Russian minister and opponent of the Kremlin, is confident that Europe will be resilient and enforce sanctions against Moscow, which he says are effective, but criticized measures such as making movement more difficult within the European space.
“Penalty measures must be applied against Putin” and not measures that could be seen by the Russian people as contrary to European values, the former Russian deputy energy minister said in an interview with Lusa.
The economic sanctions, especially in the field of energy, are having an effect, the Russian opponent guarantees, who sees in the accounts of recent months the difficulties the Putin regime is already facing.
“Gas sales fell by 22% in July, even with a 9% rise in prices,” according to data available to the Kremlin’s opponent.
Russia still has to extract gas, which it does not sell, from the deposits and therefore burns it, as has been noted and reported, which has “huge costs”, in addition to the fact that alternative markets, i.e., replacing European customers from Asian countries also result in higher transportation and logistics costs, along with “discount sales” because these countries know that Russian companies have no alternative.
“Sanctions work, yes”, but it is necessary “not to be afraid and to be patient”, Vladimir Milov said in an interview with Lusa in Lisbon, where he participated in the Estoril conferences.
Putin’s strategy, he says, is precisely to try to create a crisis with the approaching winter, which threatens Europe with a lack of gas and oil, but “Europe must stand firm”.
As an energy specialist, Vladimir Milov also sees an opportunity for Europe to replace all the gas it no longer imports from Russia and switch to alternative energy sources.
“All of this will accelerate the transition to ‘green’ energies,” which “generate more jobs” than the hydrocarbon industry, in addition to guaranteeing a greater distribution of value generated, predicts the former Russian Deputy Energy Minister.
The way forward, he argues, is to build more solar or wind farms, achieve greater energy efficiency—in homes, buildings and factories–along with the deployment of new technologies (wind, solar and other ).
As for actions against Russia, such as making it difficult to obtain visas, which have already been approved by some countries and can be adopted at the European Union level, “it will only send the wrong message” to the Russian people.
The measure, although without much practical effect, as it is already very difficult and expensive to get a visa and even more difficult to get a flight from Russia, because of other sanctions, can be seen as an action against Russians in generally and understandably because “they (Europeans) just don’t like us”, which works in Putin’s favor, he insisted.
Source: El heraldo
