This week, as falling oil prices have hammered the Russian economy, President Vladimir Putin has warned repeatedly that his country, a nuclear superpower, must not be “blackmailed.” He was talking about economic sanctions, but there is a different lesson he should be drawing right now and it has nothing to do with the U.S. or the European Union.
Putin’s response to the sanctions, imposed to dissuade him from further aggression in Ukraine, has been to shore up the big state companies and banks most affected. To compensate these businesses for their losses, as sanctions have squeezed them out of international credit …read more
Source: iPolitics
