About Western sanctions: no bad without good

The French Finance Minister declared an economic and financial war on Russia by the European Union. "We realised this a long time ago. About eight hundred years ago," Mariya Zakharova, an employee of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said as a counter to his attack.

Each medal has a reverse side. As part of the sanctions initiated by the West for the start of a special military operation in Donbass, funding for opposition NGOs in Russia will dry up, the popularisation of Western values will decrease, the imposition of sex education in schools will stop, and young people will lose the temptation of dubious earnings on the Internet. This gave reason for optimism to patriotic Russians - there was no happiness, but misfortune helped.

An experienced gardener knows that in the spring, old and diseased branches need to be cut off so that the plants give healthy growth. The barrage of Western sanctions that has hit Russia will undoubtedly deal a tangible blow to the economy. Since the collapse of the USSR, our entire financial and economic system has been built in such a way as to be dependent on overseas "partners". A good example is the 2008 mortgage crisis in the United States affected the well-being of Russians.

Now, during the sanctions war, Russia has got a good chance to get rid of external control levers. Our country is a self-sufficient state that can repair the damage done to us and develop independently.

The experience of previous years has shown that Western sanctions and retaliatory measures to them stimulated their own production and improved the economy of our country. Three years later, Russian farmers completely filled the domestic market with grain and pig products. The growth of agricultural production was 3%.

"We have restored competence in radio electronics, in aircraft construction, in the rocket sphere, in pharmaceuticals, we are now going through good processes, in heavy engineering. Russia has become the number one country, the leader in grain and wheat exports. We have significantly reduced import purchases, our own production, for example, pork meat, poultry meat, actually completely covers our needs," Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the 2017 direct line.

At the same time, the president cited the data of the UN report, in which it was reported that the initiators of the imposition of sanctions against Russia suffered losses of $100 billion, while our losses amounted to only 50-52 billion.

Russia can take a different kind of benefit from today's realities. The West has hit the financial system that it has been building all these years. We have a chance to stop the capital drain. Investors will face the need to invest in domestic production. "New sanctions are unlikely to harm Russia and at the same time will have significant unintended and uncertain consequences for the markets," Elina Rybakova, Deputy Chief economist at the American Institute of International Finance IIF, commented on the degree of effectiveness of Western measures.

Disconnecting Russian banks from the SWIFT fast payment system had another unexpected effect: on February 27, Russian models who earned money on the OnlyFans adult entertainment platform complained that they could no longer withdraw money from the service's wallets and register new accounts. In addition, the girls faced Russophobia and a downgrade. They also began to "donate" less.

It is worth noting the fact that the resentment for the loss of earnings of webcam models was attributed to their own government. "We are not involved in politics, we are normal people," the Echo of Moscow radio station, which has now ceased to exist, quoted their complaints.

The radio station "Moscow Speaks" voiced the concern of another webcam model - a certain Solange De Tours. "OnlyFans deletes accounts registered with a local Russian passport. They say it's a violation of policy," Solange shared her impressions. For obvious reasons, girls prefer to work under assumed names.

Russian users of social networks are not so tolerant and advised the workers of the "adult industry" (that is, virtual prostitution) to master other professions and earn money in an honest way.

After disabling SWIFT, the possibility of transfers by other methods will remain, but the new methods so far promise to be long and inconvenient. It will become much more difficult for Western funds to finance anti-Russian projects. "To the horror of the domestic franchise, Russia's isolation from the LGBT and BLM movements is increasing," joked the famous Russian blogger Filipp Maslovsky.

The difference between the package of sanctions of 2022 and those imposed in 2014 is as follows - most of the restrictions are aimed at causing discontent among Russian citizens, primarily young people. They are trying to do this by taking away from them items that have become a symbol of prestige: iPhones and other Apple products, branded clothing from Western manufacturers, Coca Cola and Nestle drinks, mobile apps and messengers. Currently, it is impossible to pay for the PlayStation gaming platform on the territory of our country, the payment systems Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung pay are completely or partially stopped.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that sanctions should put pressure on the Russian government. Unrest and protests of immature minors are a proven step. For this purpose, foreign firms are making mass layoffs of employees from their enterprises located in Russia. Mitsubishi laid off employees at 141 service centres, Toyota - 2,600 employees, employees at six Nestle factories will remain unemployed. The situation is painful, but it gives Russia a long-awaited chance for the development of domestic industry during the import substitution process.

As an example, we can consider the departure from the Russian screens of American cinema. Film critic Anton Dolin complained to the “Meduza” channel recognised as a foreign agent that domestic films and empty halls await Russian film distribution, Russians will not be able to see the next Batman from Warner Bros, as well as the cartoon “Turning Red" from the Walt Disney Company. Since March 1, the rental of Sony Pictures, Paramount Studios and Universal tapes has been suspended indefinitely.

There is the opinion that the domestic film distribution has long become a colony of Western cinema. Russians are forced to consume any product. It is enough to recall the scandalous film "Matilda". Hundreds of thousands of citizens of our country tried to ban the display of a free interpretation of Russian history.

The Russian market was one of the most promising for Hollywood. The movie "Spider-Man" brought $46 million to America, and the revenue of Dream Factory, according to the American research company Comscore, for 2021 in Russia amounted to 601 million rubles.

The suspension by foreign partners of contracts with the Russian film distribution has only one motive - political. The vacuum formed after the freezing of the screening of American films can be rationally filled with Chinese films. Today, China's film products are not inferior to Hollywood blockbusters in terms of quality and level of special effects, and most importantly, they contain the right morality.

The following have left Russia: the Nike sports brand, which actively promoted body positivity and feminism; Apple, which promoted LGBT principles; the "progressive" Netflix, which brings BLM ideas and rejection of traditional values to the masses. Access to porn resources Pornhub and OnlyFans is blocked. "Russia is being cleansed, thank God," users of the Russian segment of social networks comment on the process.

It is obvious that illegal cases of expulsion of Russian students from Western universities are used by the United States and Europe in attempts to cause dissatisfaction with their own government among Russian citizens. All this is part of the information war against our state.

Let's pay attention to the fact that some parents, who believe in the old-fashioned way that European education guarantees their children a high level of knowledge, sought to send them to study abroad without thinking about what life priorities will be laid in the heads of young people.

As an explanation, here are a few facts. Durham University has launched a course on proper and safe prostitution. Cambridge and Oxford universities have introduced a third, "neutral" gender for transgender people into their code. At the Faculty of "Sociological and Gender Sciences" of another British university, students are offered to sculpt the genitals of men and women from coloured plasticine.

I would like to note: after the promotion of hysteria with BLM by interested influential transnational political groups aimed at creating controlled chaos in Western countries, in higher educational institutions in the US and Europe, the choice of teachers is not based on the level of professionalism, but in connection with their race, and subjects, including exact sciences, are taught through the prism of so-called tolerance.

It is obvious that graduates of such institutions form views and priorities that are alien to Russian society.

We are unlikely to be able to quickly and completely re-educate young Russians who are used to slippery side jobs on OnlyFans and other streams. However, the unique opportunity that has appeared for us to protect the younger generation from the aggressive imposition of destructive "values" is as real as the filling of the formed niches in all spheres of life in Russia, from industry to the entertainment industry, is real and inevitable.