the times | Tuesday March 15 2022 2GM 7News
Kondartiyev, a member of the tiny
opposition group Vesna, or Spring, said:
“I’m really scared. Some Nazi freaks are
after me.” The assailants also wrote on
a wall: “A liberal spring is forbidden in
Russia — Z!”
The pro-Putin symbol was also
previously sprayed on the door of a flat
belonging to members of the Pussy Riot
art collective in Moscow.
Social media videos have shown
nationalist activists wearing black
sweatshirts with a white Z and shouting
“For Russia, for Putin!” Rows of black
Hummer cars displaying the symbol
have been spotted in Moscow.
The husband of a pro-Kremlin politi-
cian had the symbol cut into his hair to
express his backing for Russia’s “special
operation” in Ukraine. Tatiana Buts-
kaya, an MP with Putin’s ruling United
Russia party, wrote on Instagram: “My
husband shaved Z on his head. Our
family is for peace, for unity.”
State media have told Russians that
their army is rescuing Ukrainians from
neo-Nazi forces who have taken over
the country.Berlin accused
over military
engine parts
Oliver Moody BerlinUkraine has accused Germany of help-
ing to build the Russian war machine,
claiming that engine components in
captured military vehicles had been
traced to one of the largest German car
part manufacturers.
During a brief but blunt appearance
on a leading German television talk
show, Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian
foreign minister, said Berlin had a re-
sponsibility to support Kyiv with arms
and an energy embargo against Russia.
Kuleba, 40, singled out Bosch, the
world’s largest supplier of car parts to
the motor industry, whose products he
claimed had been found in Russian in-
fantry vehicles seized by the Ukrainian
army. “For years Bosch delivered the
necessary components so that these
vehicles could invade Ukraine, shoot
civilians dead and destroy our cities,” he
told the Anne Will programme.
Bosch said it would investigate the
claim. There has been no suggestion
that it knowingly violated the sanctions
regime. Germany is the world’s fourth
largest arms exporter.Russia will fail to repay money it owes
international lenders this week, ana-
lysts believe, in the latest sign that sanc-
tions are hitting its economy hard.
If, as expected, it makes a $117 million
interest payment due tomorrow in rou-
bles, it will be seen as a de facto default
and an admission that the country can
no longer pay its foreign debt.
The credit ratings agencies Fitch and
Moody’s have downgraded Russian
debt in recent days and warned that a
default is “imminent”.
On Sunday Anton Siluanov, the fi-
nance minister, said that a little under
half of Russia’s gold and foreign curren-
cy reserves, worth about $300 billion,
were inaccessible because of sanctions
on the central bank.
However, experts believe Russia can
continue to pay public sector pensions
and salaries, as the state retains key
sources of revenue and the power to
print money at home.
Ruben Enikolopov, rector of the New
Economic School in Moscow, said:Putin will default on foreign debt
but still has cash to fund fighting
Felix Light “Any default would be a technical and
political decision to pay the debt in rou-
bles, rather than a declaration that the
state can’t pay at all. Domestically, the
state’s finances aren’t so bad, even if the
economy is in a terrible state.”
With the European Union declining
to join a Russian oil ban declared by the
US and UK, Russia, which receives
about $750 million a day for energy ex-
ports, can probably stay solvent for
now, even with the extra cost of waging
war in Ukraine.
Maria Shagina, a sanctions expert at
the Finnish Institute of International
Affairs, said: “As long as the oil and gas
money keeps flowing, the Russian state
can sustain itself.”
Even so, the default warnings mark a
crisis for public finances, which had
previously been in good shape, with low
sovereign debt, much of which was
owed to the country’s own banks.
Before the war officials had boasted
that Moscow’s $643 billion foreign cur-
rency and gold reserves made the Rus-
sian economy “sanction-proof”. In-
stead, the pain is likely to be felt by theprivate sector and by consumers seeing
falling living standards.
Vladislav Inozemtsev, an economist
in Moscow, predicts that GDP will fall
by 12 to 15 per cent this year. He said:
“The economic outlook is very bleak.
We’re already seeing a spike of inflation
that will continue, and towards the
summer we’ll have a full economic col-
lapse, as supply chains break down.”
According to Yale University, 375 for-
eign brands — including Starbucks and
Ikea — have pulled out of the country
since the imposition of sanctions. The
collapse has even provoked outcry
from within Russia’s otherwise close-
knit economic elite.
Even so, experts believe that domes-
tic economic pain is unlikely to serious-
ly affect the state’s capacity to wage war
in Ukraine. Although Russia’s equip-
ment losses in Ukraine have been
severe, they are easily replaced by the
country’s arms industry, and the war’s
cost, which Inozemtsev puts at $20 bil-
lion a month, can be absorbed by re-
maining reserves. “None of this will
stop Putin,” said Inozemtsev. “Theseare relatively small numbers, and when
it comes to Ukraine, he’s a fanatic.”
There are also signs that other coun-
tries may be willing to help Russia cush-
ion the economic fallout from the war
in Ukraine.
Indian officials have signalled that
Delhi — which has traditionally warm
relations with Russia and which has re-
frained from condemning the invasion
of Ukraine — may take up Moscow’s of-
fer to buy oil and other commodities at
discounted prices via a direct rouble-
rupee trading mechanism.
Much will also depend on China. Al-
though Beijing has been careful not to
offend Moscow by backing Ukraine,
state-owned Chinese banks have been
noticeably cautious in their dealings
with newly sanctioned Russian ones.
In any case, experts say that deepen-
ing ties with China and India will not
return the Russian economy to pros-
perity in the near future.
“This is what you do to survive, not to
thrive,” Shagina said.
Debt default on the cards after Kremlin
issues warning, Business, page 37two children, was arrested after her
protest and taken to a police
station.
Pavel Chikov, a prominent
human-rights lawyer, said that she
was being charged with
“discrediting the Russian armedforces”, an offence that carries a
prison sentence of between three
and 15 years.
Her protest is an extremely rare
example of dissent on Russia’s
otherwise tightly controlled state
media outlets.shame that more Russians had not
protested after the novichok
poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the
opposition politician and Kremlin
critic, in August 2020, which the
Kremlin denies having ordered.
Ovsyannikova, who is said to haveNews
to silence anti-war influencers
Critics targeted by
Z symbol activists
A symbol used by the Russian military
during its invasion of Ukraine has been
sprayed on the doors of Kremlin critics
in Moscow, while pro-government
figures have adopted it as a sign of
unwavering loyalty to President Putin.
The letter Z was first spotted on Rus-
sian tanks as they entered Ukraine last
month and is believed to have been
used to avoid friendly fire incidents.
The Russian defence ministry said the Z
stood for “Za pobedu” or “For victory”.
In St Petersburg riot police with the Z
insignia emblazoned on their helmets
dispersed anti-war protests that had
been called by Alexei Navalny, the
imprisoned Kremlin critic.
In Kazan, a city in the southwestern
region of Tatarstan, terminally ill child-
ren at a hospice were lined up in the
snow to form a large Z.
RT, the Kremlin-backed broadcaster,
has promoted the symbol, selling Z
merchandise, including T-shirts and
hoodies, on its social media channels.
Government buildings across the
country have been lit up in the shape of
gigantic Zs at night.
The symbol, which critics have com-
pared to a swastika, has also been used
to intimidate Russians opposed to the
invasion of Ukraine.
Marina Davydova, a theatre critic in
Moscow, said that the front door of her
apartment was daubed with a white Z
after she signed an open letter
condemning the war. She said that she
believed the symbol marked her out as
a Kremlin critic. Davydova, 55, has
since fled Russia but was questioned by
FSB intelligence agents before she was
allowed to leave.
At the weekend pro-Kremlin activ-
ists sprayed a Z on to a door opposite the
flat of a student activist after they broke
into his friend’s home and destroyed a
TV, phones and computers. GlebTatiana Butskaya is delighted with
her husband’s “nationalist” hair styleMarina Ovsyannikova’s protest on state
television. Earlier she had worn a
necklace of Russian and Ukrainian
colours, far left, for a Telegram post in
which she condemned the war as a crime