US operations in Syria to threaten world economy

U.S. military operations against Syria would have a depressing impact on the world economy and on Russian-American relations, Andrei Kostin, president of Russia’s government-owned VTB bank, told reporters on Friday. “I think the impact would be bad,” he said, adding that the most immediate deplorable consequence might come in the form of an increase in crude oil prices. “When oil prices make a hike, Russia may get some short-term benefits, of course, but that’s obviously a bad thing from the angle of global growth,” he said. “Generally speaking, instability of supplies of a certain energy resource is a bad thing.” Kostin agreed that individual countries, including the U.S. itself, might have gained an opportunity for development through war or “working for war” in the 20th century. "Still, wars didn’t bring anything but devastation and destabilisation of economic growth on a larger plane,” he said. “That’s why any political destabilization or fanning of political tension is always depressing for the investor mentality,” Kostin said, adding that "When military action takes place, we get a vivid illustration of falling markets because financial investors are scared by combat operations, and this scare wields a bad psychological impact,” he said. Kostin said he did not expect anything good from the operation against Syria for Russian-American relations. “Military intervention (in the internal armed conflict in Syria - Itar-Tass) has feeble support across the world today,” he said. “Only a handful of countries support it and even NATO member-states have widely differing opinions about its prospects.” “Syria will get the same kind of finale that Egypt and Libya has already received,” Kostin said. “There’ll be one more country plagued by political instability on a scale that will be impossible to settle.”