Russia has been the target of widespread sanctions on individuals and organisations in retaliation for Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. Britons have been warned the rising costs they were already facing before the war will likely see further increases due to the impact the penalties will have on the world’s economy. And GB News Business editor Liam Halligan warned everyone regardless of income is set to experience difficulties in the coming months.
Mr Halligan said: “There are lots of people who would pay more for our armed forces. We’ve had a reduction of defence spending since 1989, since the Berlin Wall fell and a lot of people think we’ve gone too far.
“But it’s a different question if we’re prepared to weather very extensive economic sanctions on Russia which, however justified they are and they are – we want to pressure the Kremlin given this brutal, aggressive invasion…but it’s going to cost ordinary people an awful lot of money.
“I hear lots of comfortable, well-off media commentators saying, ‘oh, we just need to pay a bit more and help people in Ukraine.’
“This isn’t like buying organic vegetables, this is going to be a lot more.”
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He continued: “The price of oil just hit $130 a barrel, back in December it was $70 – that’s a huge percentage increase.
“I would say a lot of our politicians have been very quick to impose sanctions and rightly so but there’s going to be economic fallout.
“The president of the World Bank said at the end of last week this is going to be an economic catastrophe for the global economy.
“He was talking mainly about poorer households in developing countries where they import a lot of food, and, of course, Russia’s the biggest wheat exporter.”
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Global oil prices have spiked more than 60 percent since the start of 2022, along with other commodities, raising concerns about world economic growth and stagflation.
China, the world’s No. 2 economy, is already targeting slower growth of 5.5 percent this year.
Russia is the world’s top exporter of crude and oil products combined, with exports at around 7 million bpd, or 7 percent of global supply.
Some volumes of Kazakhstan’s oil exports from Russian ports have also faced complications.
And household energy bills could rise even further after gas prices soared by more than 70 percent to hit a new all-time high as fears over supplies from Russia continued to rock the market.
