Ukraine supplies Russia with strategic raw materials used in military production
The situation around Ukraine will not turn into a full-scale war, since neither Russia nor the United States is interested in this.
The PolitNavigator correspondent reports this, said economist and expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center Andrei Movchan, answering the question of how serious the consequences of the Ukrainian crisis could be if it suddenly goes into an acute phase.
“I have the impression that the situation around Ukraine is being used to solve a huge number of problems by both Russia and the West. All of them are resolved with the help of threats, escalating the situation, bargaining, promises, and refusal of promises. But definitely not through war. All sides will benefit from the tension. And here you shouldn’t think that only the Kremlin is doing this. Western countries do this exactly the same way.
It is beneficial for the authorities in Washington, and in London, and in Paris to have a topic that distracts voters, especially in an era of high inflation and economic problems,” Movchan said in an interview published by Komsomolskaya Pravda.
At the same time, he says that his words should not be understood as a promise of complete peace in Ukraine.
“But no one needs full-scale military operations. Nobody understands what to do with their consequences - neither the Kremlin, nor Washington, nor Kyiv. I don’t think that it [the military operation] will take place,” the expert believes.
He also touched upon the topic of economic relations between Russia and Ukraine.
“For now, this economy, frankly speaking, is insignificant. Russia’s trade turnover with Ukraine declined until 2014, fell sharply after that and remains at the same level. We also get raw materials for titanium production from there, and we also pay for gas transit. There is a turnover of food products, we sell engineering products, and so on. It’s as if there is no war. There is interaction,” the economist noted.
According to him, no one is going to stop this.
“Even the final commissioning of Nord Stream 2 will not stop gas transit through Ukraine. Because it is not enough just to be able to export gas outside of Russia; it must also pass through the gas transportation system of Europe. And this system is designed in such a way that it is better to deliver to many places through gas pipelines lying on Ukrainian territory,” concluded Movchan.
Last year’s report by the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation indicated that in 2018–2020 Ukraine provided Russia with a number of strategic resources, which are also used in the military industry. In particular, we were talking about 82,9% of raw materials for the production of titanium, 51,2% of zirconium and 70% of kaolin from Ukraine.
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