An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth

Brussels. If it were not so serious, it would almost be comical.

An all-out sanctions war has broken out between the United States and Russia.

Putin has used the tactic of revenge on U.S. measures before. It took only a few minutes from the time Obama announced new sanctions against Russia for Putin to do the same against the United States, showing that the Russian president had pre-prepared the measures.

Neither the U.S. nor European Union have made any secret of their intent to gradually step up sanctions, unless Russia agrees to a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Ukraine. As such, Putin already had names ready when Obama stood before the microphone in the White House.

In practice, Putin’s sanctions have a negligible effect. U.S. politicians hardly have any money invested in Russian banks and do not travel to Moscow unnecessarily, in contrast to the Russian leaders and businessmen who are happy to travel to the U.S. and think it safer to invest their money outside Russia.

What the Russian president wants to achieve is only of symbolic value. He wants to show that he is standing up against the United States, that he is not the least bit afraid of Obama. It is also a way to irritate the U.S. because Putin is often annoyed that Americans and the U.S. take on the role of knowing best and berating Russia.

It was probably also why Putin gave the whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, political asylum in Russia last year. It was a way to kick Obama in the shins that Putin simply could not resist.

Similarly, Putin hit back when the U.S. imposed a particular law against Russian officials involved in human rights abuses, in a case concerning the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky that stops them from entering the U.S. or holding U.S. bank accounts. In retaliation, Putin introduced a law prohibiting American citizens from adopting Russian children. To stop the U.S. and other countries from providing assistance to organizations in Russia involved in human rights, Putin introduced a law requiring Russian organizations that receive money from abroad to register as “foreign agents.”

These tit-for-tat retaliations have poisoned the atmosphere between the U.S. and Russia since Obama took office and were the prelude to a new cold war, which, in the annexation of Crimea, has broken out in earnest.

Perhaps Putin will respond in the same way if the EU here at the summit steps up its sanctions, or he may think the EU is too insignificant to bother with. If the U.S. and EU introduce real trade sanctions, I am quite convinced that Putin will respond in kind, or even by confiscating European and U.S. assets in Russia.

“An eye for eye, a tooth for tooth” is the order of the day.