Venezuelan Minister for Culture Ernesto Villegas (left) and US writer Lucas Koerner (right). Photo: Aqui con Ernesto Villegas.
This Sunday, July 31, US sociologist Lucas Koerner said that the West “miscalculated” its sanctions against Russia, because they have caused an international crisis, particularly for the European continent, as winter approaches. Interviewed on the Venezuelan television program Aqui con Ernest Villegas, Koerner expressed his opinion that the economic measures against Russia caused the US to make a “slight change” in its way of thinking about Venezuela.
“The blockade on Venezuela is not going to stop, there is not going to be a real change of position,” said Koerner. “There might be a tactical maneuver that might concede a bit. We must speak clearly. It is not that they changed their hearts and will say that they were wrong … They realized that their sanctions against Russia—the North American working class is the one that is paying the bill for that.”
Koerner has been contributing editor at Venezuelanalysis.com since 2015, when he moved to Venezuela. By the time he was in high school, Koerner was active in the antiwar and Palestine solidarity movements, before going on to help found a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at Tufts University. Shortly after graduating college, he traveled to Venezuela in order to learn about the Bolivarian Revolution firsthand, only to end up making the South American country his home until 2020.
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During his five years in Venezuela, Lucas conducted research on bureaucracy and revolutionary transition at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IDEA) in Caracas. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in Latin American and Caribbean History at Harvard University, according to Venezuelanalysis.com, the first progressive and anti-imperialist news outlet in the English language covering Venezuela.
On the failed US and European economic measures taken against Russia, Koerner said that, as a result of these sanctions, a deep world crisis has ensued, evidenced in an economic recession and high inflation rates in various countries, not only in Europe, but also in the US and Canada.
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“There is a global crisis … in the wake of the sanctions against Russia,” said Koerner. “They thought they were going to do what they did against Venezuela… They tried the same thing, and the entire world economy is in crisis, absolutely horrible.”
Regarding Europe, Koerner said that “it will be a cold winter” due to the lack of natural gas for several European countries, as a result of the coercive measures: “There is not enough gas to sustain Europe’s consumption. That will be a difficult winter, and for the European working class it will be catastrophic. There will not be enough gas, its reserves are empty, they are advising cold showers in Europe.
“These governments are going to fall one by one,” Koerner added.
“This policy is not sustainable, we know that the political consequence in the US will be the elections in November,” said Koerner.
The European Union’s energy ministers agreed to reduce the use of gas by 15% starting in August, in the midst of the energy crisis occurring in several countries of the union following the sanctions regime applied against Russia.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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