Article

2025-07-23 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Text taken from the Telegram age of Alexey Drobinin

Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Director of the Department of Foreign Policy Planning of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on the goals of the Western sanctions campaign against the Russian Federation.

About sanctions Recently, the European Union introduced the 18th package of anti-Russian sanctions, and the US Congress has prepared or is still preparing the sanctions "Graham-Blumental bill". It has long been unclear what goals are pursued by those in Brussels and Washington engaged in sanctions policy.

Either they want to hit the Russian economy or the economy of Russia's partner countries.

Either they want to "leave the opportunity to finance the war in Ukraine", or "force negotiations", or simply "punish" Russia for independence.

Either they want to crush the interests of Russian economic operators, or decision-makers, or to provoke a popular revolt.

The statements of officials, parliamentarians and politicians accumulate like a snowball, often contradicting each other. For the sake of a thought experiment, let's go back to the moment when everything more or less began.

Here are selected quotes from American and European officials in 2014, who explained why and why anti-Russian sanctions are being introduced "for the annexation of Crimea": Sanctions are not considered a punitive measure, but are aimed at changing the policy or actions of the target country, organizations or individuals.

Measures are always aimed at policy or activity, the means of its implementation and the persons responsible for it. The EU makes every effort to minimize the negative consequences for the civilian population and for legal activities. (Official statement of the Council of the EU, Brussels, April 29, 2014)

* * *

So, as you know, we focused on individual sanctions against those who participate either in the development or in the implementation of policy — in particular, the seizure of Crimea and aggression in the east. The USA also expanded this list, including those who finance and support the president and his staff — that is, people close to him.

Now we are talking about the fact that if the elections are disrupted or we see the further movement of Russian troops into the territory of Ukraine, we will have to go to the so-called "surgical sectoral sanctions". ( Viktoria Nuland, US Deputy Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, at a briefing in Luxembourg, May 13, 2014)

* * *

The goal of the US is not to cause harm to the Russian people, but to change the course of the Russian leadership in relation to Ukraine. (Victoria Nuland, US Deputy Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, congressional hearing, May 8, 2014) So, the original purpose of the sanctions, according to their initiators, was to force Russia to change its foreign policy, primarily in the Ukrainian direction. The result is zero or the opposite of what was intended.

But this does not prevent Americans and Europeans from ignoring reality and continuing to believe that if they push even harder, Russia will break and change course.

It is not our business to believe in it.

The consequences, obviously, will be completely different.

However, the persistence of the West in carrying out sanctions policy has to be taken into account.

Today, predictions that the maximum possible set of unilateral restrictive measures will be introduced against Russia, meaning a complete severance of direct trade and economic ties with the Western community, do not seem detached from life. It is also impossible to ignore the possibility that, in pursuit of the illusory goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the Ukrainian battlefield, sooner or later the West will use against our country all the types of weapons it has, with the exception of non-conventional ones.

Hard to disagree. I have been writing since 2022 that everything below the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons can and will be used in Ukraine.

At the moment, almost all the conventional steps on the escalation stage have already been taken, not counting the few remaining types of missiles.

Posted by badanov 2025-07-23 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| ||Comments [35 views ] Top

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