Vladimir Putin has outmaneuvered his opponents and humiliated Ukraine by continuing to back pro-Russian separatists and flouting a cease-fire, making it crucial that sanctions on Russia remain firm, France\u2019s ambassador to the U.S. said.<\/p>\n
The Russian president \u201chas won because we were not ready to die for Ukraine, while apparently he was,\u201d Ambassador Gerard Araud said yesterday at a Bloomberg Government breakfast in Washington… Echoing the view of other European envoys in Washington, Araud expressed concern that the Ukraine conflict has hit an impasse, leaving Putin the winner by default.<\/p>\n
Poroshenko is \u201ckneeling in front of Putin with the cord around his neck and saying, \u2018You know, you have won,\u2019\u201d and Putin is still not backing down, Araud said.<\/p>\n
While many observers have called Putin a geopolitical chess player, he said, the Russian leader is more a \u201cpoker player really, putting all the money on the table, saying, \u2018Do the same,\u2019 and of course we blink. We don\u2019t do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
The economic sanctions against Russia must stay in place to prevent Putin from going further, said Araud, who moved to Washington in September after serving as the French ambassador to the United Nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever we decide is a disaster for us,\u201d Araud said, again expressing his personal view. On one side, he said, lies France\u2019s credibility as an arms supplier who delivers on contracts, and on the other, the difficulty of delivering a weapons system to Putin, who might use it against Ukraine or a European ally.<\/p>\n
Araud concludes – rather ominously – and far too honestly for a paid-up member of the European elite:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question is there on the table: When is Putin going to stop?\u201d Araud said. \u201cThat\u2019s the reason that we need to keep the sanctions\u201d because, \u201clet\u2019s be frank, it\u2019s more or less the only weapon that we have. We are not going to send our soldiers in Ukraine. It does not make sense to send weapons to the Ukrainians, because the Ukrainians would be defeated real easily, so it will only prolong the war\u201d and lead to a \u201cstill bigger Russian victory.\u201d<\/p>\n
The various oligarch controlled parties seem to have won a strong victory against the various Nazi parties in the elections being held by the junta currently: 44% vs 16%, but the\u00a0official and final results will only be known on\u00a0Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Source: Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vladimir Putin has outmaneuvered his opponents and humiliated Ukraine by continuing to back pro-Russian separatists and flouting a cease-fire, making it crucial that sanctions on Russia remain firm, France\u2019s ambassador to the U.S. said. The Russian president \u201chas won because we were not ready to die for Ukraine, while apparently he was,\u201d Ambassador Gerard Araud … Continue reading “‘Keep sanctions, Putin is winning’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[2783,70,10393,1343,66,1061,7484],"class_list":["post-16581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-chess","tag-eu","tag-gerard-araud","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-sanctions","tag-ukraine"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16582,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16581\/revisions\/16582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}