Seven Phantoms of the Russia’s Policy Toward the European Union

... levels of economic interdependence allowed Moscow to take a benign view on mounting political problems with Brussels— these problems were perceived as negligible or, at least, affordable compared to fundamental reciprocal economic interests. The Ukrainian crisis and the subsequent EU sanctions against Russia proved this perception wrong. Of course, in Moscow the European decision on sanctions was interpreted as caused by the US pressure, but there are reasons to believe that the Russian side had expected EU countries to resist this pressure. The sanctions were not the only example of European economic interests ...