How do you solve a problem like Russia? That is the question on the lips of EU heads of state when they meet later this month to decide whether to renew sanctions imposed in 2014 following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea. Two years on, the punitive measures have done nothing to dent Russia’s resolve to hold on to the tiny sliver of land on the Black Sea coast. If anything, president Vladimir Putin’s popularity and geopolitical ambitions seem to have grown in direct proportion to the economic and diplomatic pain inflicted by the West.Russia’s peculiar sadomasochism forms the subject …read more
Source: The National
