______________________________
Jon Hellevig, Managing Partner of the Moscow-based Awara Group and a long-time observer of Russia’s development, said that the EU, especially, its leading countries, in essence, caved on their Ukrainian policies and the hostility towards Russia connected with them, saying, “They’re defeated on all fronts and had to admit their miscalculations. The EU was wrong from the beginning in its operation to bring about régime change in the Ukraine. The USA took the lead in the operation to topple Yanukovich through violent street riots using radical, even neo-Nazi, storm troopers, but the EU leadership and some of their countries were also strongly involved in this (Germany, Poland, Sweden). Despite strong propaganda in the Western mainstream media, many people in Europe understood that the events in the Ukraine demonstrated a Western régime change operation. This miscalculation even brought the fascist neo-Nazi Svoboda bloc into the government. The EU lost the moral high ground. Opposition parties in all the EU countries gain on this, so they have a problem with their own electorate. On top of that, big business opposes sanctions”.
Last week, German CEO’s strongly criticised Merkel and the EU for pushing Russia into a corner with the threat of sanctions. Hellevig said, “Business understands, and have now explained it to the political leadership, that sanctions would hurt European economies very severely, much more so than they’d hurt Russia itself. European leaders also miscalculated China’s role and its strong commitment to support Russia in this crisis. China didn’t let Russia be isolated. Considering all this, the EU had no choice but to try to cool down the crisis and try to get back to business as usual”. On Tuesday, European Commission Vice President Olli Rehn said that the EU should refrain from introducing broad economic sanctions against Russia if the situation in the Ukraine doesn’t deteriorate. Rehn believed that no sensible European wants to see economic sanctions or any other escalation to the crisis. However, NATO kept an anti-Russian line, vowing support to the Ukraine and Eastern European states. On Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said to the alliance’s foreign ministers in Brussels that the alliance was re-evaluating its coöperation with Russia.
In the meantime, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that he didn’t see a way to NATO membership for the Ukraine. Instead, Steinmeier renewed a push for internationally-backed direct talks between Russia and the Ukraine. At a meeting with his French and Polish counterparts in Weimar before heading to Brussels he said, “What’s important in the coming days is getting Russia and the Ukraine around a table together”. The joint statement of the ministers said that the Ukrainian junta should shun extremists; they urged it to reach out to all Ukrainian regions, to ensure that governmental structures are representative and inclusive, and to issue a timetable for constitutional reform. Hellevig expressed hope that this statement signals that the EU shall back Lavrov’s proposal to set up a federalised Ukraine.
31 March 2014
Darya Chernyshova
RIA-Novosti
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140402/188987391/OPINION-EU-Capitulates-On-Their-Ukrainian-Politics-.html
Voices from Russia 
24 March 2016. As Seen by Vitaly Podvitsky… Bruxelles… We’re With You…
Tags: Belgium, Brussels, cartoons, editorial cartoons, EU, Europe, European Union, ISIS, political commentary, politics, terror, terrorism, terrorists, United States, USA, Vitaly Podvitsky
Bruxelles… We’re With You…
Vitaly Podvitsky
2016
______________________________
Explosions in Brussels… Europe is on fire. This is the fruit of unreal and ill-conceived policies. All those who pointed the finger at Russia, now find themselves in worse straits. Europe couldn’t and didn’t see the fruits of those black seeds that it planted with its own hands. The policies of the USA and the EU towards the Middle East will long resonate in our airports, concert halls, and football stadiums… giving in to ISIS, trading with terrorists, attempting to “domesticate” these animals to use them for their own purposes, have only led to self-destruction. However, not only Hollande, Merkel, and Obama feel the ill effects… ordinary people, everyday Europeans, also experience that black reality today…
22 March 2016
Vitaly Podvitsky Masterskaya Karikatury
Facebook