Russian sanctions? Yeah. Right.

The EU Foreign Ministers are proposing economic sanctions against Russia. So that’s alright, then. That should quickly bring Putin to heel.

 

The EU has no problem in agreeing to this. They are not going to do anything about energy imports, or Russian industry, or banning imports or exports or arms or anything that might harm Germany or France or Italy.

 

The sanctions will only affect financial transactions, almost all of which go through the City, and oligarchs including those who live in London. To all intents and purposes, the UK is doing all the heavy lifting. Nice one, Dave.

 

The wretched Russkies will just have to take their business elsewhere. Already the dosh is pouring out of London to Singapore and other eager recipients. ‘Money talks; I’ll tell you why. I heard it once. It said ‘Goodbye’! The proposals are ‘tabled for discussion’, perhaps to give Putin time to make alternative arrangements. One is to restrict the export of ‘technology knowledge’, the sort of stuff needed for fracking etc. That should be a much-needed stimulus for Russia to develop its own. That business will be lost and gone forever; the EU’s loss and Russia’s gain.

 

Do these Brussels suits imagine for one moment that this  pantomime will have any effect other than to strengthen Putin’s macho image and   support? Do they really think that the Russian people, accustomed throughout history to the most unimaginable  sufferings, are going to capitulate just because their banks might have to go elsewhere to raise capital or to sell their bonds (bond auctions in Europe will not be affected in any case)?

 

Sanctions just don’t work. They failed in Rhodesia. They failed in South Africa. (A major effect is to encourage self-sufficiency). Rhodesia failed when John Vorster stabbed it in the back by cutting off ammunition supplies. South Africa changed because it had become ungovernable. Sanctions had nothing to do with it any more than the Moscow Olympics boycott forced Russia to quit Afghanistan.

 

The solution to the Ukraine impasse is not difficult to define. This whole mess was triggered when Brussels decided to cuddle up to a country that was corrupt on a gargantuan scale and possessed not a single qualification for EU membership. The EU could now give Russia a copper-bottomed guarantee that membership of both the EU and NATO is off-limits to the Ukraine on condition that Russia stops playing games on the eastern frontier.

 

What’s not to like?