Gas boycott affects Russia much more than Germany

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), the West could hit the Russian economy the hardest with a halt to gas imports. Accordingly, a trade stop of gas would result in a 2.9 percent slump in Russia’s economic output, according to the simulation calculation published Wednesday by the Kiel-based researchers. Completely abandoning oil would result in a 1.2 percent drop in economic output. “For Germany and the EU, the economic damage would be extremely small in both cases,” the trade experts summarized their study. According to the study, Germany’s economic output could even increase slightly by 0.1 percent if it were to forego Russian gas, as would that of the EU as a whole.