Recently mass medias paid a lot of attention to the latest tendencies in the position of French president. In particular, during the Munich Conference which took place on the Feb. 14-16 2020, French leader mentioned that sanctions against Russia not only do not work, but also cost a lot for Europeans “as many, as they cost for Russia”. Such statements of the president of country, which is guarantor of peaceful settlement of Russian-Ukrainian conflict in Normandy format are at least disputable ones and remain a lot of questions with no answer.
Political and economic sanctions were established against Russia as the result of harsh violations of international law by this country: occupation of Ukrainian Crimea peninsula, armed aggression in the East of Ukraine, because of which particular regions of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine are currently controlled by pro-Russian puppet regimes. There are undisputable evidences that so-called DPR/LPR receive constant financial, technical, information support from Russia, its professional military servants have taken part in the conflict on the side of separatists for the whole 6 years since the Donbass conflict started. It is well-known that Russia issues passports in these territories, which is direct violation of Minsk agreements. Nevertheless, Moscow remains the prime attorney of DPR/LPR and other illegal armed units in the occupied territories.
United Europe has undertaken great efforts to suppress Russian aggression. Though sanctions against Russia are not enough rough as the situation demands they still have serious effect in the middle-range and long-range outlook. The sanctions caused stop of hot phase of conflict. Russian economy suffered from great damages – particular industries stayed without investments, without access to the technologies and high-tech equipment and therefore collapsed. The policy of import replacement did not gain pre-planned effect. Counter-sanctions established by Russia had only political character (to have influence on inner audience) and had just the opposite result, just emphasizing the results of western sanctions. The fact that Kremlin officials permanently call for cancellation of sanctions means that these sanctions do work.
There is another essential nuance of this case. Serious economic problems (flights of investments, permanent downsizing of living standards of Russian citizens) have no influence on the policy of Kremlin. In other words, Russian government does not care about the downsize of living standards of their own people (except the fall of their ratings).
However, the periodical escalation of military situation in the East of Ukraine means that the current sanctions regime is not enough to finish war conflict completely. In this case, the complimentary tendencies in the rhetoric of French president, such as admitting Russia as “absolutely European country”, call for cancellation of political and economic pressure on Russia, searching for another approach to settlement of the conflicts (maybe more strategic important ones for European players) are only the ways to increase destructive policy of Kremlin, aimed to defeat EU and NATO.
The necessary continuing of sanctions regime and even their restrictment as the response to destructive actions of Russia on international arena remains one of the effective instruments to have influence on Kremlin.
