Ready to plunge EU-Russian relations into another Cold War, the European Union announced today that it was slapping the Russian Federation with travel bans and asset freezes, a hostile act that could severe diplomatic relations. EU officials think they can apply a new EU framework permitting the Brussels-based European Council to sanction countries that don’t meet EU human rights standards. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, 62, thinks she has a license to sit in judgment of other sovereign states when they don’t agree with EU policy. Von de Leyen has a responsibility to maintain world order, a far more important value that sitting in judgment of leaders that don’t agree with her values. “I expect additional sanctions to be in place before the EU summit in March,” said an unnamed senior referring to the March 25-26 gathering of 27 nations in Brussels.
Von der Leyen wants to sanction 68-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin for arresting, convicting and jailing 44-year-old Russian dissident Alexi Navalny. EU and U.S. officials have demanded that Navalny be released, when they have no authority or sovereignty to make those demands. Meeting on Feb. 17 in Brussels, ambassadors from Sweden, Germany, France, Poland and the Baltic States, all expressed support for applying travel bans and asset freezes on the Russian Federation. EU ambassadors can stomp their feet all they want but they have responsibilities to regional and global peace, something badly hurt by imposing new sanctions. If Putin makes good on his threat to break off diplomatic relations with the EU, how’s that supposed to help hot spots around the globe,including the ongoing wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and developing hot spots in Iran and North Korea?
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 66, favors sanctions against the Kremlin but won’t stop her $11 billion investment in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, designed to supply Russian natural gas to Germany. Navalny’s backers want the EU to target Russia’s oligarchs that own much of Russia’s industry, with strong ties to the Putin and the Kremlin. Whatever the internal affairs in the Russian Federation, how does the EU imposing sanctions help regional and global stability? While the U.S. and EU consider Navalny a pro-democracy activist, he’s really a Trotskyite developing a nationwide network of resistance to topple Putin’s 20-year reign of power. Von der Leyen’s up in arms since Putin expelled Feb. 5 diplomats from Germany, Sweden, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all because Navalny foolishly returned to Russia after medical treatments in Berlin for his August 24, 2020 poisoning in Tomsk, Siberia.
Showing a folie a deux with the U.S., anti-Putin sentiments have boiled over the top, after four years of fake news blaming former President Donald Trump for colluding with the Kremlin. Recent reports about Russia hacking SolarWinds network management software used my many U.S. government and military agencies, riled up the U.S. and EU intel communities. U.S. and EU officials are still furious about Putin invading and annexing the Crimean peninsula March 1, 2014. No one in Washington and Brussels has thought through repercussions of slapping Putin with sanctions. No one in NATO, the U.S. or EU is prepared to confront Russia on the battlefield anywhere on the planet. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed Putin’s help release an Israeli woman that strayed into Syria, it showed exactly why destroying diplomatic relations with Putin is a bad idea.
When you look at the big picture, Navalny offers the U.S and EU nothing in terms to regional or global security. Spending years fomenting revolution in Russia, Navalny burnt all his bridges with Putin and the Kremlin. If anyone existed in the U.S. or EU that threatened U.S. or EU national security, both government wouldn’t hesitate to incarcerate prosecute the person for sedition or fomenting revolution. Navalny claims he’s an anti-corruption activist but actually schemes to take over the Russian government. U.S. and EU officials must wake up before it’s too late, threatening to sanction the Russian Federation over Navalny. Navalny offers the U.S. and EU nothing when it comes to world peace or global security. Navalny’s good a stirring the pot, trying to prey on U.S. and EU paranoia about Russia’s alleged meddling in regional and global affairs, something based on pure speculation.
No one in the U.S. or EU wants to talk about the CIA-sponsored coup that toppled the Kremlin-backed government of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yahukovych. Whatever was wrong with Yanukovych, the U.S. shouldn’t have toppled his regime when Putin was busy hosting the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. When the dust settled, Putin thought the CIA threatened Russia’s national security in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. That’s not reported in the Western press, only hearing about Russia’s incursions in Crimea and Ukraine’s Southeastern Russia-speaking Donabass region. Jeopardizing U.S.-EU-Russian relations will have lasting consequences on global security, especially if Putin breaks of relations with the EU. Whatever happened with Navalny, it’s an internal matter requiring a Russian solution, not condemnation and sanctions applied to Moscow by U.S. and EU.
