Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
By Pavel Kukhmirov
[Sevastopol] Bloomberg reports that US politicians are divided into two camps on the issue of further anti-Russian sanctions.
“There is no unity in the Biden administration about how much more sanctions against the Russian Federation can be increased without provoking economic instability and without violating transatlantic unity,” the agency’s sources say.
According to Interfax , one group, which includes many State Department and White House officials, advocates even stronger secondary sanctions; another group of officials are concerned about further strain on a global economy already plagued by disrupted supply chains and inflation, volatile oil prices and a potential food crisis.
Such messages will come more and more often in the future, which is not surprising: sanctions aggression is primarily destructive for the aggressors themselves. But there is no need to flatter yourself: the “dear partners” still have a lot of tools to blackmail our country. Not to a small extent due to the fact that the Russian Federation itself provided them in the previous period. One of these is the American blackmailing of Russia by "technically defaulting."
The US Treasury recently issued an official announcement that a US government agency will not renew a special license for Russia, making it unable to repay its external debt obligations on approximately $19 billion of non-resident bond issues. Roughly speaking, the Russian Federation is deprived of the opportunity to operate a number of American financial instruments.
And this decision of the US Treasury means, in fact, the so-called "technical default" of Russia. In other words, depriving her of the opportunity to pay her debts despite the fact that she has money. This will entail the refusal to provide dollar loans to the Russian Federation by a number of countries from the US zone of influence, as well as the inevitable fall in virtual credit ratings compiled by US-biased agencies, and the creation of a formal pretext for the confiscation of up to $ 350 billion worth of Russian gold reserves actually stolen.
Well, this will also create a formal reason for blocking other financial ties. Again, in fact, the above measures are already acting against Russia, and formally provoking a technical default by America will not give anything new. The set of economic punitive measures against Russia has already been exhausted. And this is not a great price to pay for the exercise of the sovereign right to an independent foreign policy that is in line with the state's interests.
Question: was it necessary to use these financial instruments at all? Indeed, according to US laws, its residents must pay 5-15 percent tax on income from foreign securities. And now the Russian Federation, redeeming foreign currency bonds and paying coupon income on them, replenishes the US budget, indirectly financing the purchase of weapons and economic assistance to the Kyiv regime. This was known even before the special operation and, moreover, it is known now.
And, to put it mildly, the arguments of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation about the need to fulfill payment obligations by any means, even without linking to the unblocking and return of gold reserves, look strange. But they turned out to be stolen, including through the fault of the leadership of the Ministry of Finance. But, at least, they need to clarify the reasons why the Ministry of Finance has been increasing external borrowings all these years under the pretext of “financing the budget deficit”, while foreign exchange earnings have increased, and the federal budget has been in surplus. And at the same time, 12-14 trillion rubles were mortified in the FNB without movement.
This is what gave rise to America's current opportunity to blackmail Russia with a "technical default." Serious damage against the background of what the United States has already done to Russia will not be caused by this. But their “default blackmail” is, first of all, an excuse to sort out what has been going on in the financial sector of the Russian Federation all these years. Yes, and it continues to happen now. So what are we going to do: whine or understand?
Pavel Kukhmirov is a former Donetsk militiaman and a current resident of Rostov, Russia. His call sign is "Shakespeare." 
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