Friends or pawns? Sarkozy is falling into Putin’s trap, says analyst

More than 680,000 migrants have crossed to Europe by sea so far this year, fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, according to the worldwide Organization for Migration.

It is necessary to promote the political process and final settlement of all disputable worldwide issues, Putin said.

“We are in the perspective of at least a progressive lifting of [EU] sanctions”, Sarkozy also said. Without Russian Federation we can not provide responses to the serious causes and sharp crises which arise today.

So far this strategy of bluffing and bullying has paid off; the White House has meekly gone along with the charade of diplomacy, with any political chill between the United States and Russian Federation quickly criticized as a potential “return to the Cold War”.

Beyond the revisionist rhetoric, there is Putin’s February 17 meeting with his European Union party’s doyen, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, (a meeting lamented in the streets of Budapest by demonstrators opposed to becoming a “Russian colony” again). On the other hand, Putin has ushered in a new authoritarianism, unyielding in his brutal repression of revolts and squashing of dissent.

Russia, even the weakened Russia, which is not as powerful as the Soviet Union was, still, you know, could do much more damage than 10 different Islamic States and while we’re talking about responding to Vladimir Putin’s aggressive actions, I mean, first we should recognise that conflict is unavoidable and would rather do it sooner on our terms than later on the terms of our enemies.

Germany’s largest suppliers of weapons, Anschutz and Walther Arms, are trying to get sporting guns out from under the sanctions against Russia, the daily broadsheet Izvestiya reports, citing Anschutz’s Russian spokesman Vladimir Nosikov. The American president had raised expectations that his administration would look at the Kremlin’s record of brutality at home and transgressions overseas, and attempt to ally with the beleaguered Russian people instead of our repressive government.

The Vienna meeting was just the first step. They need a realistic approach and limit their expectations of what the opposition can do to Putin.

Critically, not only have both the Ukraine and Syrian crises become central to the formation of Putin’s program/ideological project, but they have also become events that have broken through the regime’s remaining concerns about the taboo on the use of force overseas. Russian Federation has repeatedly denied the allegations. What is often missed by global analysts in this context, is that these initial securitising moves were focused on the domestic Russian space, and not counteracting Western power and principles overseas.

Bruno Le Roux, head of the Socialist group in France’s lower house of parliament, criticized what he said appeared to be an embrace of authoritarian leadership.