The West thinks they have Putin in a box. If the peace talks fail, it will blamed on Moscow, which shows the level of contempt the West has for its own populations. It is they who will suffer from the counter sanctions, which the Russian foreign ministry has said over and over it wants to avoid. The key part of the Russians having good long term business relations with their European energy customers was to return some of the large gas revenues through building a significant export trade, which was $110 billion when all of this started. Even today, when the Russians had to respond to the new Western sanctions, their tone was full of diplomatic regret. As Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman said, “We are sorry that the European Union has adopted a new round of sanctions. We have repeatedly expressed our discontent with the previously-imposed sanctions and our disagreement with them. We also considered them illegal”… “The EU decision is absolutely beyond understanding and explanation.” But Peskov did not miss twisting the knife on those the EU leaders were willing to sacrifice to pursue their aggression in Ukraine. “At the same time, it is impossible not to understand that one way or another, European companies will have to pay for those sanctions as well as taxpayers,” Peskov said. “This is actually happening already. The new EU sanctions attack on Russia’s energy sector was both telling and strange. After all, with Russia being a long term gas supplier to Europe, despite its efforts to diversify suppliers more, one would think that the more reserves the Russians had the better, as higher supplies tend to keep the prices down.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 13:31:29 +0000
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