It’s dangerous to corner Russia too much

When President Vikto Yanukovych of Ukraine fled his capital Kiev on Feb. 21, 2014, after the Maidan protests, very few could have predicted that it would unfold into a second Cold War between Moscow and the West.

Only five days later on Feb. 26, Russian forces sneaked into the strategic Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea, essentially occupying the Ukrainian territory.

It was the European Union that acted first. After all, the protests had started based on Ukraine-EU relations. In an extraordinary meeting, the Council of Europe condemned the Russian move, imposed travel bans and froze the assets of a number of Russian and Ukrainian officials, demanding that Moscow pull out of Ukraine.

U.S. President Barack Obama issued his first Executive Order regarding the crises on March 6, imposing sanctions on “individuals and entities responsible for violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine, or for stealing the assets of the Ukrainian people.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s answer to those moves was to rush a referendum in Crimea on March 16, and the next day Crimea was annexed to Russia. Putin thought Obama would never get into a war against Russia over Ukraine, like Russia would never fight with the Americans for Syria. This is why some people are referring to the Ukraine-Syria situation (which squeezes Turkey from both the north and south) as a Second Cold War.

The same day, on March 17, and then again on March 20, Obama issued two more Executive Orders extending the scope of sanctions on Russia, including Putin’s “inner circle,” in coordination with the EU.
The U.S. and the EU have sanctioned in coordination almost all the major defense companies, state banks and energy companies of Russia.