Page 10 - RusRPTApr23

Russia, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he may have to “rethink” his relations with Russia, Kazakhstan started inspecting exports to Russia to see if they are sanctions compliant and Serbian President Aleksander Serbian President Aleksander Vucic said that his country no longer ruled out the possibility of imposing sanctions on Russia.
A game of whack-a-mole has begun as the West tries cajole or bully non-aligned countries to join the sanctions regime. The recent successes scored by this Western diplomatic effort have certainly made the sanctions regime tougher, which will only increase the costs for the Russian economy.
The situation with the size of the budget deficit will not become clear until April or May when the first convoy of Russian tankers return from Asia. However, economists are predicting that MinFin will miss its 2% of GDP target and have a short fall of not RUB2.9 trillion but something like RUB4trillion, or RUB6-9 trillion in the extreme scenarios.
Sino-Russian relations
The major political event was the visit to Moscow of Chinese President Xi Jinping fro three days. Very little concrete was agreed, but the mere symbolism of Xi visit was an act of defiance of the Western sanctions on Russia and challenge to US global leaders. Xi was playing to the Global South audience, showing China to be an alternative power centre to the US one.
In practical terms this relationship with China ensures Russia will have a market for its fuel and commodities so that it wont go bust and sanctions will ultimate fail insomuch as Russia will not face an economic crisis even its growth and development will slow.
10 RUSSIA Country Report Russia April 2023 www.intellinews.com