The near-universal condemnation of Russia for waging war on Ukraine spurred an unprecedented use of sanctions to force drastic change. Will it be enough, though, with lesser attempts failing to work with North Korea and Iran? Or will Vladimir Putin simply wait out the West, slaughtering Ukrainian civilians on a daily basis while the Russian economy collapses?
According to NATO, if Vladimir Putin believed that his war in Ukraine would shake up the world order, he was probably correct—but not in the way he expected.
NATO announced Wednesday that it will provide more battlegroups to its eastern flank, including hundreds of additional troops, and has promised to support Ukraine if Putin uses weapons of mass devastation, as US intelligence has warned.
“Any deployment of chemical weapons would fundamentally alter the essence of the conflict,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
The United States has consistently speculated that Moscow is considering a “false flag” operation to explain the deployment of such weapons, a method that Moscow was accused of testing prior to the start of the war one month ago.
On the economic front, Putin intends to exploit the energy market by obliging so-called enemy countries to pay for gas in Russian rubles. This action has the potential to exacerbate Europe’s worst energy crisis since the 1970s.
The European Union has stated that it will continue to tighten sanctions against Russia, but that energy measures will not be included due to the EU’s reliance on Russia for fossil resources. Despite this, the EU and the US are close to reaching an agreement to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian energy.
Source: Bloomberg
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