The impact of the West’s sanctions just seems to be getting worse and worse for Russia.
Now, 98% of Chinese banks — even small regional ones — are refusing to accept direct Chinese payment transfers from Russia, Alexey Razumovsky, the commercial director of the payments company Impaya Rus, told the pro-Kremlin media outlet Izvestia.
Such issues appear to have intensified over the past three weeks, as smaller Chinese financial companies were still processing Russian payments in May and June, Izvestia reported.
Last month, the Russian outlet Kommersant reported that about 80% of bank transfers made in the Chinese yuan were bouncing back with no explanation after being stalled for weeks while banks decided whether they could transact.
Razumovsky told Izvestia the payment challenges with Chinese banks could contribute to supply-chain difficulties and inflation in Russia.
Some people have likened the economic growth that Russia is experiencing like that of the US’ post war boom. So, some analysts believe that Russia will be okay for the foreseeable future. I don’t want to sound coping and I still leave room for imagining other possibilities (the war is still unpredictable after all), but those analysts haven’t considered that 1) USA became the sole major free market economy untouched after World War 2 and the rest of the world became reliant on US as the result. 2) USA has not been sanctioned during and after the war by major Western powers, unlike Russia is today.