The overall European economy’s losses from the reduction of Russian natural gas supplies have already exceeded €1 trillion (over $1,145 trillion), said Chief Executive Officer of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev, Special Representative of Russian President for investment and economic cooperation.
“This is definitely more than €1 trillion,” Dmitriev said, speaking on the sidelines of the 2025 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in response to a question about EU’s estimated losses regarding the cuts in Russia’s natural gas supplies.
In spite of that, ideologues like those at the IW, a business-linked economic institute in Cologne, are already thinking of new sanctions, claiming falsely that Russia is dependent on foreign currency to wage the war in Ukraine. With a few exceptions, the necessary materials come from Russia and are not imported.
The IW is in line with claims at the EU Commission, which make the same mistake. Insiders hint that this propaganda only serves EU plans to seize frozen Russian property in the range of €300 billion to compensate for some of the European losses.