With the Minsk ceasefire holding between Ukraine and its ethnic Russian eastern rebels, Obama aide Tony Blinken says that the US could begin easing economic sanctions against Russia within the next few weeks, assuming progress continues to be made.
The ceasefire has put an end to the war on most fronts, though there has been some intermittent fighting in the rebel capital of Donetsk, which has come under shelling at times.
The US didn’t seem keen on the ceasefire at the time, but with it holding and winter fast approaching they are likely under growing pressure from Europe to dial back the sanctions, allowing commerce to flow into central and western Europe again.
Despite the encouraging statement from Blinken, he went on to say that the US is also examining ways to increase the sanctions against the Russian economy in the event that they don’t like the rate of progress made in east Ukraine.
So we will hear about the sanction show again in spring?
Unless there are even bigger fish to fry by then. The last 12 months brought lots of surprises, let's see this continue. I'm betting on actual nukes entering the fray within the 12 months in one or the other hotspots.
Some days ago there was a debate about Ukraine on Russian TV in presence of one american journalist and the representative of NATO, Both were almost denying killing of civilians in Donbass but what was more interesting is the conditions given to Donbass and Russia to stop sanctions.First stop of arm supply from Russia -which Russia denies- second was the total surrending of the Donbass fighters>The russian journalist asked then : does Nato gives guarantees that they will not be killed,totured as it happened..The answer of the Nato representative was surrealistic : he said that the interantional community is the garanty. With such unrealistic positions this civil war will continue.Now I am wondering : maybe Nato invent unreal conditions in order to pursue its conflict with Russia ?
No maybes about it. That's been the US/NATO operating method since the beginning of this conflict? Keep the propaganda flowing, count on the aftereffect of 70 years of Cold War rhetoric to avoid any scrutiny of western claims, call the Russians aggressors while driving NATO right to the gates of Moscow. A truth with as much in common with Lewis Carroll as with George Orwell. In the entire nuclear era, no top leadership of a power state has so openly flirted with the possibility of nuclear war as the Obama-Kerry clique has over demanding total Russian submission to American diktat and free Russian natural gas for the Ukrainians.
The bottom line is that it was foolish to mess with Ukraine as that is like someone messing with Canada, Quebec or Mexico. We would have reacted the same….Except we would be in Mexico City by now. It is worth mentioning in passing, that we the US are not that bright, as we have pushed Russia into the arms of China. I hope we can grow a brain someday.