Last year Russia invaded and seized the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. It has since used its soldiers and military muscle to back a pro-Russian separatist movement in eastern Ukraine. The United States and its European allies were not prepared to go to war over the Crimean annexation and Moscow's further intervention in the affairs of a sovereign state. So they did the next best thing. They imposed sanctions, which included asset freezes and travel bans on leading Russians known to be close to the Putin Kremlin. These sanctions were first and foremost political. They were designed to persuade the Russians, if possible to quit the Crimea. Interestingly, the Ukrainians had as shaky an historic claim to the territory as the Russians. It was originally a Tartar-dominated region until Stalin deported almost the entire population to what is now Uzbekistan for allegedly collaborating with the Nazi German invaders. The main aim of the sanction was to try and force a political settlement on Moscow which would cause it to quit its meddling in the east of Ukraine in return for some level of autonomy for the ethnic Russians within Ukraine. Now the Russians have retaliated by producing their own blacklist of 89 European politicians, officials and military officers, who are being forbidden from visiting Russia. It ought to have caused wry smiles in Europe that Putin's administration has not imposed asset freezes on these individuals, since clear few, if any, will have been mad enough to trust so much as a cent of their wealth to the Russian financial system. Yet the European reaction has been one of laughable outrage. There have been great huffings and puffings in the corridors of power the length and breadth of the continent. Instead of treating this frankly pathetic Kremlin move with the contempt it deserved, the European response has made it seem that these personal travel bans are of the greatest importance. There seems little comprehension that if Washington and its European allies can target sanctions at individual Russians, Russia can respond in kind. It ought to be appreciated that what is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander. This said, there is clearly a subtext playing out here. EU companies, not least those in Germany, are heavily invested in Russia, to an extent that US corporates have never been. If the Kremlin's somewhat absurd ban on 89 individuals is viewed in a wider context, then it can be seen as a shot across the EU's bows. A clampdown on substantial EU investments in Russian companies is the next step. Russia is a country with a deeply-flawed commercial code and judges who will do what the Kremlin tells them. The next step would seem to be the sequestration of EU investments. That such a move would damage Russia's stumbling economic recovery far more than the interests of foreign investors is not a consideration. Russians are already learning to do without their little European luxuries thanks Putin's retaliatory import ban on many European products. He is busy playing to the nationalist gallery by seeking to reassert Russia's old Cold War place in the world. By protesting at this basically meaningless ban on 89 individuals, Europe is playing into Moscow's hands and giving Putin propaganda victory. By far the better course of action would have been to ignore the ban completely.
