Thursday, September 18, 2014

Russia.

Sanctions, especially the latest round, targeting, inter alia, Kalashnikov, are biting. Russia's former finance minister says they could push the Russian economy into zero growth or a recession in 2015. Surely not coincidentally, Vladimir Putin has accused the West of violating World Trade Organization agreements. Sure hope Putin is wrong about that.

There are a couple of other reports, not from authoritative media however: One has it that Russia is moving troops in Ukrainian Crimea to the border of the rest of Ukraine; another says that Putin has stated that Russian troops could be in Baltic and eastern European capitals as easily as he said he could be in Kiev. The language is almost identical.