Does anyone think sanctions will undo the Crimea annexation?

[morningfog]

Is that the objective of sanctions and isolation, to undo the annexation?

Or, is the purpose of the sanctions just to punish Russia and discourage further annexation in Ukraine?

I don't think anyone can reasonably believe that any sanctions will cause Russia to undo the annexation of the Crimea. The threat of sanctions didn't stop it from happening and now that it is done, it won't be undone anytime in the foreseeable future.

[pkdu]

1. This us all about preventing further annexation of other " Russian speaking enclaves"

No one serious believes Putin will give back Crimea to Ukraine.

[hack89]

2. Severely punishing Russia economically is a worthy goal

if it deters them from doing it again.

[Takket]

3. No...

Putin wouldn't give back Crimea even if we nuked Moscow, because men like him will never admit they made a mistake about anything. What the sanctions are intended to due to create internal pressure on him in Russia to disuade him from making future rash invasions like he did in Crimea. It is easy, and even expected, for a man like Putin to ignore any demands or requests made from the west. He wouldn't grant any Western request even if it was for us to give him a billion dollars no questions asked. But when the Russia people and his own inner circle start feeling the heat, only from his own inner circle is a person like Putin going to respond to pressure.

and the sanctions in place now are by no means gonig to cripple Russia. They are just a "shot across the bow". What is really going to hurt Russia in the coming year is the effect of "driving away" the EU and USA from trade. Basically they just ticked off their biggest spending and most wealthy customers. These entities are going to deal more with each other and leave Russia on the outside, which is going to force Russia to drop their prices to move any goods at all, which is going to depress their economy even more.

Despite the love fest between Putin, his people, and the Republicans, his move was VERY short sited, inspired by anger of Yanukovich being ousted, and in the long term is going to damage his country.

[backscatter712]

39. This. Also, note that Obama is using a "gradually-turn-up-the-heat" approach.

Rather than pulling a George W. Bush, shouting YEEHAW! and going directly to the most reckless response, Obama's starting off with the little stuff - sanctions against government officials, freezing their assets, then is moving up to sanctions against some Russian industries... He's turning up the heat, little-by-little, and giving plenty of warning. Eventually, things will get hot enough that Russia will at least hold off on any more "liberations", and we'll have achieved deterrence without risking WWIII.

[dipsydoodle]

4. No.

Discourage further annexation in Ukraine more likely.

[riqster]

5. He won't give anything back. But we can hope to stop him here.

[reformist2]

6. The purpose of them is to make it look like US/EU are the good guys in this. It's moral posturing.

The reality is that it's just a classic East/West tug of war over a piece of real estate.

[Cha]

8. Putin's a piece of shit.

[reformist2]

9. I'm not playing this childish game of taking sides in this pretend cold war. It's stupid.

[Cha]

11. I don't care what you do.. putin's a piece of shit.

Russia’s Anti-Gay Crackdown

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/opinion/russias-anti-gay-crackdown.html?_r=0

Russian journalist says domestic politics behind anti-gay crackdown

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2013/11/26/russian-journalist-says-domestic-politics-behind-gay-crackdown/

NYT Editorial: “Mr. Putin’s War on Gays”

To the long list of Russians whom President Vladimir Putin is persecuting, add gay people and those who support gay rights. Along with political dissidents, journalists and billionaire businessmen, they are increasingly the focus of repellent laws and repressive practices that could send them, and anyone who dares defend them, to jail.

For some time, antigay sentiment has been spreading in Russia’s conservative society, encouraged by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. But Mr. Putin and his government have taken that to a new level by legitimizing the hatemongering in legislation.

http://americablog.com/2013/07/nyt-editorial-mr-putins-war-on-gays.html



Travel Guide To Moscow

"First of all, Russia has become very corrupt throughout the last few years. Vladimir Putin has now been in office for twelve years and over those twelve years he has eliminated most elections, monopolized major media, and destroyed the democratic political system. Everyday people are brutally arrested for starting and participating in anti-Putin protests, while some are even detained simply for being nearby. Clearly, Putin’s actions are those of a dictator, and he plans to stay in power as long as possible."

http://sites.psu.edu/egorivanov/2014/01/31/travel-guide-to-moscow/

[reformist2]

12. That's it. Let out that anger. Vent.

[Cha]

13. Yeah, facts about putin scare you.

[Throd]

29. OK, I'll vent. Putin is a thug with Stalinist leanings.

[go west young man]

47. The people beating up on you for your opinion..

seem to miss the fact that by doing so they are turning people off their cause. This is the same thing they did during the Olympics to the Russian people. Drove them to the opposite side of the fence. Putins poll numbers actually went up and gay people lost supporters in Russia. Not a smart strategy.

[OilemFirchen]

31. Like hell.

You took a side from the very outset. Are you man or woman enough to own up to that?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. I guess - and obviously, I can't read Obama's mind - that it's about Estonia, Moldova etc. N.T.

[seveneyes]

10. Nope.

And it will encourage the cheerleaders to escalate the actions. The brass ones get bigger the more they are polished.

[OilemFirchen]

36. Yay!

We needed a new popinjay. The others have become far too predictable.

[theboss]

14. Crimea is likely lost; the sanctions are to stop Putin there

He clearly has bigger ambitions.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. Of course not. The idea is to prevent Russian aggression toward NATO countries we

have commitments to defend. That should be obvious.

[morningfog]

17. There is no actual threat of that happening and our NATO obligations are clear.

Sanctions don't change any of that.

[reformist2]

21. Exactly. It's just moral posturing. In reality, the US/EU are no better than Russia in all this.

[go west young man]

48. Russian agression towards NATO countries?

Last time I checked...we were the once who were doing the encircling.

[AngryAmish]

16. No, but we are not about to go to war about it.

So we do what we can. America is not all powerful nor do we have to right every wrong in the world.

[morningfog]

18. Which is exactly what I am getting at.

[jwirr]

19. The sanctions should make the cost of any more moves like this too costly. What answer do you have?

[morningfog]

20. I don't have one. I just question the effectiveness and objective.

[jwirr]

22. I think that is one of the reasons we are going slowly on this - other than going to war we are not

sure what will work.

[Adrahil]

23. No. No one expects that. NT

The real goal of sanctions is to get Russia to back off on destablizing Eastern Ukraine as they are currently doing.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

24. Eventually Russia will be pressured to come to the table with the"illegitimate" Ukrainian government

(Illegitimacy being Russian's own perception, of course.)

The pressure hopefully as a result of ever-tightening economic sanctions.

If I see a negotiated solution, it might be as follows:

1. Crimea is recognized as being independent from both Russia and Ukrainian control.
2. Russia is allowed to keep its naval base in Sevastopol, as it had when Crimea was Ukrainian territory.
3. Russia promises not to lay claim or make any incursions into the Ukrainian mainland.

Of the three, I see #3 as being the most difficult to uphold, knowing Russia's past track record and treaties.

[reformist2]

32. The West will be lucky if Ukraine doesn't break in half. They can forget about Crimea.

[TwilightGardener]

25. The alternative: do nothing, and see what happens when Putin gets another

bug up his ass--like for Eastern Ukraine. You make such aggression and violation of international law costly, or there will be no end to this behavior.

[ballyhoo]

26. No, just the opposite IMO......

I think it may move up the Belarus takeover...However, it depends what happens in the US elections in in November. If the Republicans win the House and Senate, it's all over but the shoutin'.

[JPZenger]

27. The painful sanctions were reserved as a deterent to protect rest of Ukraine

Obama was being bashed by McCain and some chickenhawks for not immediately instituting tough sanctions. He has those tough sanctions ready and waiting in case Putin tries to take more of Ukraine. There really in a line in the sand - it is just economic not military.

Russia has a huge military interest in Crimea. If he had just been more patient and not been so obvious with his military, he could have gotten control of Crimea without looking like another Stalin.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi has now been forbidden by Putin from vacationing in Moscow.

[DetlefK]

33. Putin is getting punished for being impolite.

Crimea will stay with Russia and as soon as it no longer looks like Russia might annex Eastern Ukraine, the sanctions will be lifted.

Russia could have gotten Crimea in a peaceful, deceitful, diplomatic way, but that's not how Putin rolls: He's a man of power and force, longing for the good old days when Russia was the center of an empire. Maybe he just lacks the imagination how to pull the annexiation of Crimea off in a more "elegant" fashion: "Yanukovych is gone! A new beginning! Let's start with a clean slate! Ukraine reborn! Btw, Crimea wants to be reborn in a pre-WWII-way."

[BlueStreak]

28. The media keep repeating the meme that "we lost". That is nonsense.

First, we don't have any significant national interest in Crimea. We just don't have a dog in that fight.

But the bigger picture is that the Ukraine was a USSR state, and has largely remained a Russian satellite since the breakup of the USSR. And Crimea in particular has been entirely under Russian control. Russia's Black Sea fleet is still based there. They never left.

So what is changing? The eastern part of the Ukraine is becoming more friendly to the west. That is the net effect of all of this. There is effectively no change in Crimea. So why is that a big loss? It is actually the other way around. If Obama can get the boundary set at the mainland, then this is a big win for the west.

[Throd]

30. No. It's a done deal.

[magical thyme]

34. No. Which leads to the question...

What must Putin do to stop the sanctions? Or are they a permanent feature now?

Is there a "do this and we will remove the sanctions" attached to this action?

[morningfog]

38. That's my question, too. To what end?

Is this the permanent new normal?

[bigwillq]

35. No (nt)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

37. They're still trying to topple the Cuban government with much harsher sanctions. It's still there

after 52 years. And, the sanctions are still there.

[Catherina]

43. +1 n/t

[NuclearDem]

40. No. But they're in place to get him to pull back from the Ukrainian border.

Though frankly he deserved them long before that for that abhorrent anti-gay law.

[cthulu2016]

41. The sanctions are intended to reduce the possibility of similar *future* actions

I don't know whether they will have the desired effect, but that is the idea.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

42. Crimea's obviously a done deal.

Note that the new ones get very close to Putin; the US Treasury actually called him out, as follows:

They are as close to "friends" as Putin has – they go back years and still play regular ice hockey games together. Given Timchenko's long-standing ties to Putin, and the extraordinary rise of Gunvor from obscurity to one of the world's leading oil trading companies, the company has long been subject to rumours of Putin's involvement as a beneficial owner.

Nobody has ever been able to prove this, however, and Gunvor has always denied it, which makes the US Treasury statement on the sanctions remarkably forthright. It reads: "Timchenko's activities in the energy sector have been directly linked to Putin. Putin has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/20/us-sanction-list-vladimir-putin-inner-circle

The Visa and Mastercard thing will make him pull up, since this hits large sections of the upper middle classes as well as the rich; anyone who has enough money to travel overseas and stay in hotels and had their money in that bank, which was singled out for being the closest to Putin. They've all just been hugely inconvenienced. That's something that will resonate for a long time.
Once again, someone underestimated Obama. Once again, they're not laughing anymore, anymore than the Republicans were in 2010 after the ACA got passed. People seem to take some sort of pleasure in trying to prove Obama weak; they get bewildered every time, and then have to either shut up or resort to spluttering invective, the latter being what Russia is probably doing as I write this.

[dipsydoodle]

44. Crimea Gets First Installment of Russian Financial Aid

MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti) – Crimea has already received the first installment of financial aid from Russia, the republic’s first deputy prime minister said on Tuesday.

Crimean leaders signed a reunification treaty with Russia earlier in the day, incorporating the republic into the territory of Russia.

“The first installments have already arrived. We need this support, because Kiev stopped financing our military and law enforcement. We expect to receive the first tax revenues in late May or June… then we won’t need so much support,” Rustam Temirgaliyev said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

He said that Crimea is expected to switch to the Russian national currency in early April.

“Unfortunately I have to say that there will be no transition period when the [Russian] ruble and the [Ukrainian] hryvna will be simultaneously effective. This is hardly possible because the Ukrainian National Bank stopped supplying us with hryvnas,” the premier said.

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140318/188549508/Crimea-Gets-First-Installment-of-Russian-Financial-Aid.html

[Rex]

45. No.

nt.

[freshwest]

46. Sanctions won't undo Crimea; Sanctions won't stop more; NATO will. Ukraine isn't a member, so they

never had the military force protecting them that NATO affords its members.

Suggestions that Russian minorities in other countries such as Estonia will be used as pretext for Russia to move in there will never happen. NATO is there and it's obligated to protect any of its members:

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO; /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending.

NATO was little more than a political association until the Korean War galvanized the organization's member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure in 1966 for 30 years. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the organization was drawn into the breakup of Yugoslavia, and conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 and later Yugoslavia in 1999. Politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the 11 September 2001 attacks,[5] after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF. The organization has operated a range of additional roles since then, including sending trainers to Iraq, assisting in counter-piracy operations[6] and in 2011 enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973. The less potent Article 4, which merely invokes consultation among NATO members, has been invoked four times: by Turkey in 2003 over the Iraq War, twice in 2012 by Turkey over the Syrian Civil War after the downing of an unarmed Turkish F-4 reconnaissance jet and after a mortar was fired at Turkey from Syria[7] and by Poland in 2014 following the Russian intervention in Crimea.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO

What I emboldened there is why Obama has done what he has in recent years. It is his duty as POTUS to follow up on treaties our nation has signed. It's not like the man wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and does stuff 'just because.'

NATO's role has evolved over the years. They use American forces for certain functions (such as Navy Seals) world wide and other nations provide other functions as part of their membership. It's not just an American organization. And IIRC, Europe supplies 30% of the funding for NATO and they expect it (and us) to show up.

Ukraine (and Crimea) had no protection under NATO and I doubt Russia or Putin will do anything more. As awful as it sounds, perhaps the safest solution for ethnic Russians in those countries where they feel themselves (and not whatever someone else says) that they are being discriminated against or even threatened, should move to Russia, despite the hardship.

I say that because reports in the weeks since the overthrow in Kiev said a half million ethnic Russian Ukrainians crossed the border to Russia. So they saw no other solution. Some ethnic Russians in the Baltic states have claimed they were being mistreated for years and there is fresh anti-Russian sentiment per reports. But all reports from the region are disputed. We don't know.

I expect we are approaching the end of this situation, and Putin will not give up Crimea, and no one can force it no matter what they feel. Crimea has had an election and the residents there seem to accept the situation. I could be all wrong, and hope they won't start killing each other there.

JMHO.

[Egnever]

49. Maybe

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-20/russia-outlook-cut-to-negative-by-s-p-as-obama-widens-sanctions.html

This will affect them. I am not sure the russian people will find it worthwhile.

Time will tell.