Norway imposes sanctions on Russia in line with the EU's economic restrictions

Norway has slapped Moscow with sanctions that imitate the eleventh batch of economic restrictions imposed by the EU. Although Oslo has also suffered a price, the government continues to maintain that this approach is harming the Russian economy.

Five weeks after the EU imposed a nearly identical set of sanctions, the Norwegian government unveiled the most recent round on Tuesday, RT reported. Besides prohibiting the import of several raw materials from Russia and the trading of "dual-use goods," which refers to technologies and components with both civilian and military purposes, Norway's latest sanctions blacklist 87 Russian people and 34 Russian businesses.

“The sanctions are having an impact on the Russian economy," says Norway's Foreign Minister

With minor modifications, Norway has cloned each consecutive round of EU punitive measures. Even though Norway is not a part of the EU, Anniken Huitfeldt, the foreign minister, said that adopting the penalties from Brussels showed “a strong and clear European response to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.”

“The sanctions are having an impact on the Russian economy and preventing key inputs from reaching the Russian war industry,” Huitfeldt stated.

The EU has entered a crisis of escalating inflation and record energy prices as a result of its sanctions, especially its prohibition on the import of Russian fossil fuels. In the meanwhile, contrary to what Western politicians and academics had feared, the sanctions have not crippled the Russian economy. IMF projections indicate that Russia's economy will expand this year more quickly than Germany's.

Norway, like Russia, is a net exporter of fossil fuels and is thus better equipped than the majority of EU members to handle the current energy crisis. But, Oslo hasn't been immune to fallout. As a result of Western sanctions, a $2.4 billion part of its sovereign wealth fund, which is a public pension fund built up of the excess of its oil income, is currently frozen in a Russian bank.