MOSCOW, April 28 (RIA Novosti), Daria Chernyshova – The White House is merely digging itself deeper into a hole by imposing further sanctions against Russia, failing to grasp that Moscow will not compromise when national security is at stake, independent analyst and New York University professor Prague Vlad Sobell told RIA Novosti.
“European history has demonstrated that Russia will not compromise when it believes that its security and independence are at stake,” Sobell said. “It is utterly baffling why the White House fails to grasp these realities and why it keeps on digging itself deeper into what is a very big hole,” he added.
On Monday, the US introduced new sanctions targeting seven individual Russians and 17 Russian companies in response to Crimea’s reunification with Russia, which the United States does not acknowledge, as well as Russia’s stance on Ukraine, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.
“At the contact group meeting in Geneva on April 17, 2014, Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and the European Union decided on a number of steps to deescalate the situation in eastern Ukraine, including refraining from further violence or provocative acts,” Carney said in a statement.
“Since April 17, Russia has done nothing to meet its Geneva commitments and in fact has further escalated the crisis. Russia’s involvement in the recent violence in eastern Ukraine is indisputable,” he said.
“By pushing for deeper sanctions, Washington risks exposing its impotence in the face of Russia’s determination to prevent Ukraine’s accession to NATO,” Vlad Sobell told RIA Novosti.
He added the US fails to understand that Russia’s political and security establishment “is bound to view Ukraine’s creeping accession to the alliance as the ultimate ‘red line’ and hence is ready to stall it at any price, including direct military confrontation with NATO.” “Against this background, Moscow will view any sanctions, however extensive, as a mere irritant,” Sobell said.
Moreover, the US and the EU appear to be divided in their views of further sanctions against Russia. The EU has a large trade turnover with Moscow and large European corporations are expected to lobby against the sanctions amid a fragile economic recovery. Sobell noted that Russia would be damaged by sanctions, yet “the balance sheet is far from clear.”
“First, Russia would turn elsewhere to replace business with the EU destroyed under the impact of the sanctions,” Sobell said. “Second, as many commentators have pointed out, the Kremlin may even welcome some aspects of the sanctions as a tool in its efforts to ‘de-offshorize’ the economy. And, finally, we should not underestimate the impact of the swelling patriotic sentiment resulting from Russia’s confrontation with the West,” he told RIA Novosti.
Sobell concluded that the US had embarked on a high-risk path – “far from buttressing the West’s unity and demonstrating the strength of the alliance, it risks exposing NATO as a ‘paper tiger.’”
Moscow has repeatedly warned that talking in the language of sanctions is “inappropriate and counterproductive” and warned its Western partners about the “boomerang effect” that sanctions would have.
