A serious blow to our economy, which for quite some time feared on the part of America, can fly from the Foggy Albion. True, the US in this case, too, will not remain aloof. British Prime Minister Teresa May agreed to consider the parliament's proposal to limit operations with the Russian sovereign debt. At the same time, there is still no question of a direct ban on the purchase of Russian government securities. They just want to make uninteresting for potential buyers by putting a screen on the London stock market. The head of the foreign policy committee of the British Parliament, Tom Tugendhat, came up with the idea of ??prohibiting leading clearing companies, such as Euroclear and Clearstream, from registering transactions with Russian bonds. This will close the possibility of reselling eurobonds in the secondary market and will scare away most investors from the EU and the US. The politician discovered a big "hole" in the current sanctions regime. "At present, Russia can occupy the capitals of the EU and the US in the markets, despite Western sanctions, and then support the banks and energy companies that are connected with the Kremlin, who can not do this on their own," he quotes The Guardian. Recently, the clearing houses of the City of London helped to issue Eurobonds of the Russian Federation in the amount of $ 4 billion, and almost half of these securities were sold on the London markets,. And the organizer of the issue was "VTB Capital", being under sanctions. Dependence on foreign investors, who, in total, hold more than a third of Russia's debt, is Russia's greatest weakness, I'm sure Tugendhat. But Western leaders are so afraid of the negative consequences for the world financial markets that they miss the only opportunity (with the exception of military means) to limit the "illegal activity of Russia". It seems that the hot British guys arguments of the US Treasury seemed not too convincing. In February, after a special investigation, he refused to apply sanctions to Russia's sovereign debt, reasoning reasonably that there would be more harm from such actions than political benefit. It is obvious that such measures will undermine the world system of the debt market as a whole. If any of its segments are isolated, it will be a signal for investors that the same can be done with any other segment. Conventionally speaking: tomorrow, the Chinese "are guilty", and they too can be "punished" in this way. All this will sharply reduce the interest in any sovereign bonds and stimulates the flight from traditional currencies to loan-currencies and other instruments that are not controlled by world regulators. However, now the US itself may well change its mind. The next (and very serious!) Aggravation of the situation, which every day gets worse, can push Washington to more radical actions in terms of new sanctions. Moreover, today Russia is an ideal platform for such experiments. Its public debt on a global scale is a drop in the bucket. The White House can easily introduce a ban on the purchase of Russian bonds to test how the new mechanism will work - whether it will hit the world financial system or not. If the damage is relatively small, the next step may be the disconnection of the Russian banking sector from SWIFT. Of course, even talking about such intentions could negatively affect the Russian economy, not to mention their real implementation. "If there are any sanctions on our Eurobonds, and foreigners will flee from these securities, the market will collapse quite accurately. Bets will grow. Crediting will become much more expensive and harder, "- predicted the vice-president of the" Golden Mint House "Alexei Vyazovsky. How strong will be the blow, will largely depend on the reaction of the Bank of Russia - will he buy this panic or not. Russia's gold and exchange currency reserves are still quite large, and with their help it will be possible to minimize damage.

The collapse of the OFZ market and Eurobonds will naturally lead to a tangible weakening of the ruble. True, the repetition of the collapse, which happened in the first years of the last crisis, is not to be feared, the expert is sure: the Central Bank has already learned to cope with such difficulties.

But even in the current conditions, despite high oil prices, by the end of spring, the dollar may be in the range of 60 - 62 rubles. If the events continue to develop so rapidly and unpredictably, this can happen much earlier.