Russia’s Response to the

European Union’s Discussion of Sanctions

On Friday, September 5th, 2014 I wrote a post related to reports regarding the European Union and their discussions of sanctions on Russia. On Saturday, according to an AFP report in Yahoo, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov responded to the European Union by saying, “As for the new list of sanctions from the European Union, if they are passed, there will undoubtedly be a reaction from our side [.]” According to the report, it seems that Russia is upset that the European Union is going ahead with these sanctions even though, as of right now, Russia points out that the truce continues to exist.

Russian leaders did not specify in this article what the response would look like, but one can imagine the possibly of Russian sanctions on Europe would not be off the table. In a Yahoo report on Monday, it said that Russia is considering the possibility of not allowing any flights over their territory, as a response for the possibility of EU sanctions. Russian Prime Minister Demetri Medvedev was quoted in the article as saying that “If there are sanctions related to the energy sector, or further restrictions on Russia’s financial sector, we will have to respond asymmetrically.”

Again, it must be noted that Russia and the European states are economically (and resource wise) dependent on one another. In addition, Russia is heavily dependent its energy exports, and EU sanctions could hurt this pat of their economy greatly. However, given the European Union’s reliance on Russian energy sources, It seems that neither the EU or Russia would prefer sanctions, but if the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalates, it may make the European Union respond.