Russian President Vladimir Putin spent nearly a decade developing a “Fortress Russia” strategy to mitigate the impact on his nation and its financial institutions from Western sanctions before launching his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
That strategy, which included an accelerated “de-dollarization” effort since 2014, has failed in the face of stiff sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies and partners, which were not only unprecedented in scale and scope but equally unprecedented for the unity in which they were implemented, freezing more than $300 billion in Russian assets in banks after the invasion.
That is unlikely to happen, however, should the United States try to rally the international community to impose blanket sanctions across financial institutions, banks, and corporations in China, panelists at a May 16 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) forum agreed….