[Biodome]

Originally Posted by Nicoleise

For these reasons, I imagine that the applied reasoning could be such as; if we impose these sanctions on the entirety of Russia, rather than "only" Crimea and Sevastopol, then...

• ...we'll be damaging our export market
• ...we will risk destabilisation of Russia
• ...we will risk destabilisation of the EU (for example, if Russia turns of the supply of gas to Europe, while Europe is technically selfsufficient in gas, the prices of gas would rise dramatically, affecting domestic and commercial heating, production and mobility)

That makes sense. I agree with you that Crimean sanctions are possibly just a way for the EU to make an explicit ideological stance on the conflict, rather than something designed to force the issue. Destabilizing Russian economy does indeed seem slightly unrealistic, although I've heard from pro-Ukrainian sources that "the Russian economy is failing" and that "the current international sanctions are extremely effective, and we need more of them". Then again, you'd expect those kinds of sources to be supportive of the EU.


It's funny that we've managed to completely derail this nice thread on the .com domain, though