EU imposes latest Crimea-related sanctions, Putin to open Kerch Strait bridge

The EU Council
decided on May 14 to impose sanctions on five Russian citizens responsible for
organizing Russian presidential elections in the illegally occupied territory
of Crimea on March 18. They will join 155 other individuals who are subject to
asset freezes and an EU travel ban. “My meetings in Aachen with the leaders of
the EU, France and Germany clearly confirmed that the topic of deoccupation and
renewing Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea is one of the urgent priorities of
the European daily agenda,” Ukrainian President Poroshenko said on his Facebook
page upon learning of the sanctions.

France’s Ministry of
Culture published a map on its website this month that designated the city of
Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula as belonging to the Russian Federation, the
pravda.com.ua news site reported on May 14. It later corrected the map to
indicate Sevastopol is a Ukrainian city. Meanwhile, the mayor of the Crimean
city of Yevpatoriya said on Facebook that the city council signed a sister city
agreement with the French town of Marignane. Russian MPs took part in the May
14 signing ceremony in Marignane, which also reportedly involved the town’s
deputy mayor.

Russian President
Putin will participate today in the opening ceremony of the Kerch Strait bridge
that links the Crimean peninsula with the Russian mainland. The Russian
government spent about USD 4 bln to build the 19-kilometer bridge in
construction that began in 2015. The bridge will be open to traffic tomorrow
and is estimated to be able to handle 40,000 cars and 94 trains per day, and 14
mln passengers and 13 mln tons of cargo per year.

Zenon Zawada: These latest incidents show that the
European Union is struggling to achieve consistency in its campaign to force
Russia out of Ukraine. But the efforts sometimes fail not only at the local
level, but also on the diplomatic level. It’s worth considering that only five
Russians were targeted for sanctions out of a list of 140 submitted to the EU
Council by Ukraine. It’s also worth considering that sanctions are being
imposed all the while the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline
continues unimpeded, the benefits of which to Russia could offset damage from
the sanctions.

These events
involving Crimea indicate that the Russian strategy of outlasting the
EU-imposed sanctions have produced some successes. Gradually, restless European
entrepreneurs are growing tired of suspended trade with Russia. The European
public is getting acclimated to a Russian Crimea even on an unconscious level
(as demonstrated with the French Ministry’s map mistake). If not for U.S.
pressure, we believe that Russia would have survived the EU sanctions and
eventually had them relaxed in EU legislatures, which are turning increasingly
nationalist.

The main question that remains is how long will Russia be able to resist
the Western-imposed sanctions before its economy deteriorates. With global oil
prices rising, it will be at least another three years. Given that we expect
the sanctions to remain in place during this time, we expect Russian President
Putin to explore his war options rather than capitulating. After all, Putin
didn’t spend billions in state funds building a bridge to Crimea only to return
the peninsula to Ukraine.