Obama: This is not a new Cold War with Russia
CNBC, Jul 29 2014
Obama announced new economic sanctions against key sectors of the Russian economy on Tuesday but denied that Usaia is in a new Cold War with Russia. The President announced that his administration had authorized the blockage of exports of specific goods and technologies that benefit Russia’s energy sector, and increased sanctions on Russian banks and defense companies. Obama also said that he authorized the suspension of credit that encourages exports to Russia and financing for development projects in the country. Obama said the new sanctions will increase the pressure on “the cronies and companies that are supporting Russia’s illegal actions in Ukraine.” Explaining the newest sanctions, Obama cited Moscow’s continued arming and encouraging of Ukrainian separatists, intelligence that indicates forces inside Russia have launched artillery strikes into Ukraine, and the continued increase of Russian military along the border. Obama said:
Today Russia is once again isolating itself from the international community, setting back decades of genuine progress. And it doesn’t have to come to this. It didn’t have to come to this. It does not have to be this way.
Usaian sanctions will have “an even bigger bite” for Russia because of their coordination with Euian sanctions, the president said, adding that Russia’s economy has already suffered at the hands of Western sanctions. Obama said:
We have made it clear that if Russia continues on its current path, the cost on Russia will continue to grow. And today is a reminder that Usaia means what it says.
In response to a question from the press pool, Obama emphasized that the sanctions do not represent a new Cold War, but are instead specifically tied to Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. Earlier Tuesday, Obama wrote to Putin to inform him directly that the Usaian government had ‘determined’ that Russia violated the intermediate-range nuclear treaty, according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, who told reporters at a briefing:
That is an indication that this is a matter that merits the serious attention of the leaders of both Usaia and Russia.
Earnest declined to provide details on how Russia violated the treaty. Usaia also slapped sanctions on VTB, the Bank of Moscow, the Russian Agriculture Bank and the United Shipbuilding Corp over Moscow’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, the Treasury Dept said. That expands the list of Russian banks subject to Usaian sanctions to almost all the largest banks with state ownership of over 50%, except for Sberbank. The sanctions on the three banks prohibit Usaian citizens or companies from dealing with debt carrying maturities longer than 90 days, or with new equity. The sanctions on the shipbuilding company, based on St Petersburg, freeze any assets it may hold in Usaia and prohibit all Usaian transactions with it.
Usaia & Euia Ready New Russsian Sanctions as Fighting Rages
Margaret Talev, Gregory Viscusi, Brian Wingfield, Bloomberg ‘News’, Jul 29 2014
Usaia & Euia are nearing tougher sanctions against Russia for its role in the fighting that continues to rage in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions target “key” Russian industries, energy, defense and finance, and are being imposed in the face of Vladimir Putin “doubling down” in support of rebels battling Ukrainian troops, Usaian Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said yesterday. Euia is preparing to announce a list of the Russian president’s “cronies” subject to asset freezes and travel bans after reaching an agreement yesterday. At least 10 soldiers and 22 civilians died in violence in the past day. Ex-NATO SACEUR Stavridis said today on Bloomberg TV Surveillance:
Putin continues to isolate himself in the court of world opinion. The sanctions look stronger than they did three, four weeks ago. They’re moving in the right direction.
Usaia and its allies are seeking to squeeze Putin amid months of pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine’s easternmost Donetsk and Lugansk regions and this month’s Malaysian jet disaster. Up to now, Euian governments that depend on Russia for trade and about one-third of their energy supplies haven’t gone as far as Usaia in hitting Russia’s $2t economy. The sanctions were agreed on yesterday during a video and phone conference between Obama, Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and Renzi. Russia hasn’t effectively pressured the separatists to negotiate and hasn’t taken the “concrete steps” asked of it to control Ukraine’s border, Hollande said in a statement. The names of Euia’s latest targets, approved by diplomats from the 28-nation bloc at a meeting in Brussels, will be published late tomorrow, an official said. While sanctions already in place are squeezing Russia’s economy, they haven’t forced a political change, according to Blinken, who said the nation has extended support for the rebels in eastern Ukraine since the Jul 17 downing of Flight MH17. Usaia also ‘found’ Russia violated a Cold War-era arms treaty on making, possessing or testing a type of cruise missile, an Obama administration official said. The IMF cut its forecast for Russia’s 2014 economic growth last week to 0.2% from 1.3%, citing capital flight fueled by the Ukraine conflict. Russia is this year’s worst performer among the world’s 20 biggest stock markets as the dollar-denominated RTS Index dropped 15.9%. The benchmark Micex Index rose 1% today in Moscow, its first advance in three sessions. Russia canceled its second ruble bond auction in a row today, with the Finance Ministry citing “unfavorable market conditions.”
Russia is backing the eastern Ukrainian insurgents with artillery fire during fighting near the two nations’ border, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Andrei Lysenko said today in televised remarks. The ministry says Russia is massing troops on its border, supplying the separatists with weapons and other equipment and firing from within its territory. Russia denies involvement in Ukraine’s crisis, in which the pro-Kremlin insurgents have been driven out of their strongholds in recent weeks, and repeated calls yesterday for a cease-fire. A key Usaian and Euian demand is unfettered access to the Malaysian plane crash site. The jet was probably downed by a missile fired by the pro-Russian rebels, Usaian officials have said. The OSCE said today via Twitter that “intensive planning” is underway to access the area, which Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says is still controlled by armed insurgents. A team of Dutch forensic workers was unable to reach the site today because of fighting along the route, the Dutch ANP news service reported, citing a spokeswoman for Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, who heads the mission. The lack of access paves the way for more sanctions. Usaia will probably deny Russia access to oil-production equipment for use in the Arctic and deep waters, and add more banks and energy companies to a list of those banned from Usaian financing, New York-based Eurasia Group said in a report. Robert Kahn, a former Treasury official now at the CFR, said the Obama administration may match the EU’s sanctions list and prohibit additional financial activities such as foreign exchange or commodities trading with certain Russian companies. Kahn said by phone:
You will see a significant and long-term decline in the Russian economy from these sanctions.
Niqnaq 
4 Comments
Of course it is a new Cold War. Obama is trying to have it both ways because when the realization sets in for the opiated masses that retirement age will be raised to 70 in order to pay for all the outlays necessary to re-position NATO east to Poland and, if you are right, Banderastan itself, there will be a great deal of “morning after” disappointment. Obama’s approval rating has already suffered. The only thing keeping the Democrats from a complete rout in the approaching midterms is the generally accepted knowledge that the current crop of Republicans are the worst in memory.
I started my morning with a confusing account of what Poroshenko asked for vs what appears now to be going to happen: here. I’ve moved it to the top because it strikes me as enormously important. The sarcastic little intro comes from a Saker commenter, but it expresses my own feelings, and it caused me to look up the ITAR-TASS stories. Jul 28 was the day of Yats’s resignation, and all the news stories from that day are preoccupied with that. But I would like to know whether what Poroshenko told the Rada on Jul 28 was that in three days’ time he would be bringing a proposal for an armed international force around the crash site, or an unarmed one. In any case, it’s definitely going to call for an armed one now, with the results that the Saker person states: rapid local escalation with international troops in the line of fire.
Maybe now that the U.S. got what it wanted, substantive sanctions from Europe, there will be a de-escalation. Because if Western troops go in on the ground that close to Mother Russia there is no doubt that Putin will take off the gloves. He has to. If Moscow allows that Dutch contingent to remain it will turn into another Camp Bondsteel. Western governments have no public support for all this malarkey. The Kremlin does. The West will have to back down.
“Another Camp Bondsteel” – what a striking comparison. We shall see whether Russia will react. I would say that the only thing that Russia will do militarily speaking is defend the border, as precisely as it can. But this is not as simple as it sounds, because before you know it, both sides are “suppressing firing positions” on the other side, ie firing across the border at one another, “defensively”, and not only that, but sometimes it is more efficient to send small raiding parties across the border on foot to “suppress the firing positions” concerned, than to lob shells at them. So, defending the border becomes a complex and potentionally “controversial” business in its own right – never mind the crash location, which is something like 50 km from the border.