EU foreign ministers to support extending Russia sanctions today

The EU Foreign Ministers Council will vote to recommend extending sanctions related to the annexation of Crimea against Russian individuals and organizations for six months until September at its Jan. 29 meeting, reported the Reuters news agency, citing a leaked draft of conclusions to be reached. The Council also plans to add more Russian citizens to its sanctions list, reported the EUObserver news site. The conclusions also accuse Russia of playing a role in the Jan. 24 rocket attack on civilians in Mariupol.

The leaked conclusions also call upon the European Service of Foreign Action and the European Commission to continue preparing more restrictive economic measures, reported EUObserver. They may involve capital markets restrictions that reduce the maximum term for repaying the loans of Western institutions and investors, making it hard for Russian companies to refinance themselves and affecting Russian sovereign obligations, reported Reuters. They may also restrict access to oil and natural gas extraction technologies. Excluding Russia from SWIFT won’t be considered, as had been reported in the media, Reuters said. Yet any new round of economic sanctions can’t be imposed earlier than the end of March since the Council’s recommendations need to be submitted to the European Commission for approval.

European Parliament President Martin Schultz told an Austrian news agency he opposes a new round of sanctions against Russia in response to the escalating conflict in Ukraine, the Ukrayinska Pravda news site reported on Jan. 28. “If new sanctions helped us to resolve the crisis, then I would be in favor of further sanctions,” he said. “However I doubt that the crisis can be resolved with new sanctions.” The EU is supposed to demonstrate to Russia that peace can be achieved by negotiations, not military confrontation, he said. “We need to try to resolve the crisis by means of combining sanctions with dialogue, otherwise we will end up under threat of a more serious military conflict,” he said.

Unilateral sanctions won’t force the Russian government to turn from its current course, which it views as right and just, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an article published on the ministry’s web site on Jan. 28. He cited historical experience in demonstrating that isolating Russia leads to harsh consequences for Europe. He accused the West of creating the conflict by forcing Ukraine to adopt a “one dimensional foreign policy vector,” as well as supporting a government overthrow. He stressed the need for Ukraine to remain beyond NATO, which he dubbed “a rudiment of a past era.” The conflict needs to be resolved by direct negotiations between the Kyiv and Donetsk and Luhansk governments.

Zenon Zawada: It’s a relief that the EU Foreign Ministers Council is preparing to recommend extending sanctions and introducing new ones. At minimum, it will serve as a demonstration of the civilized world’s rejection of Russian-sponsored violence against civilians. As noted, the recommendations might not be accepted by the European legislature. The message is what’s important, following the Jan. 24 Russian-sponsored attack killing 31 civilians.

Schultz’s expressed doubt on the effectiveness of sanctions falls in line with our earlier expressed positionthat they won’t deter the Russians from their campaign of murder and aggression in Ukraine. Not only do the Russians factor in new sanctions, but they also find creative ways of avoiding them. Schultz proposed a combination of sanctions and dialogue, but that merely confirms the inability of many Europeans to comprehend the Putinist threat.

Unfortunately, we see the conflict growing more gruesome, with both the Ukrainian and Russian economies deteriorating. The best means of stopping the Russian aggression is to undermine its economy, which the West has already begun to do. We see Western leaders pursuing this strategy for as long as it takes to destabilize the Russian economy, which could be several years. We don’t see the Europeans changing their strategy significantly for as long as the conflict is confined to within Ukraine’s borders. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian state might be largely ruined in the process, with thousands of more deaths along the way.