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European leaders tell Putin to agree to unconditional ceasefire by Monday or face ‘massive’ sanctions
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 10 May 2025
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Haven't Western nations already been applying significant sanctions to Russia? It's pretty clear that hasn't been working, why do they imagine that more of the same will work any better? Oh right, they don't, they just want to look like they're doing something useful.
Secondary sanctions could cripple Russia. If Europe and the US say trading with Russia means you cant trade with them then China walks away. No two ways about it, China needs markets to sell their stuff, it would be tense and countries would skirt around them but individual companies can no longer operate flights to the UAE because the governments trade with Russia? They dont do enough trade to make that worthwhile, Russia isnt a big enough market for any country who has any passing trade with the EU or US.
Why? Primary sanctions didn't. The US and Europe effectively crashed out of Russia's economy for the most part; they lost access to Western banking, Western businesses abandoned Russia in droves, and the oil and gas sales to Europe that Russia is heavily dependent upon have been significantly reduced. Yet they seem to be doing fine, so what's left?
Also, why on earth would China walk away from trade with Russia? It's pretty clear the US-led world order of trade is falling apart and China hasn't been the one begging for trade deals over here, they seem fine to just write us off and go on about their business elsewhere in the world, I doubt they would have any compunction about doing the same to Europe if it came to that (which I doubt it will.)
The total amount of Chinese trade with Russia is less than the deficit Europe has with China. Secondary sanctions would mean they lose access to the EU which is about 4 times the population size of Russia, and same again for the US. China is pragmatic, and they don't want that difficulty in favour of propping up a failing regime.
Yeah the Trump regime is stupid and cant handle international relations. Why would China engage.