Bungling with Russia over Crimea will send the West knocked out with a bloody nose. One way or another, it was a crisis a long time coming. Europe has arguably sleepwalked into a reluctant confrontation with Russia. The continent’s next-door behemoth of a neighbor, saddled by a man it secretly detests the most, is also its largest energy supplier, irascible trading partner and purveyor of most maladies diplomatic.
MADRID | By J. J. Fdez-Figares (LINK) | The main European and American stock markets closed yesterday up in a new session with low activity and reduced volatility, where the investors interpreted the words of the Russian President Putin, in his speech in Crimea, as an attempt to avoid the international isolation of his country as a result of their involvement in Ukraine. Yesterday again the macroeconomic figures published in the Eurozone surprised negatively because to the shrinking economic growth in Germany in the 2Q 2014, the first produced since 1Q 2012 during the euro crisis, the stagnation of the French economy and in the whole of the eurozone during the same period – the German and French economies account for about 50% of the Eurozone.
MADRID | By Álex García.
Evgeniya Khilji | Tensions between “Russians” and “others” can be observed more closely in Putin’s Russia’s large cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, where the concentration of legal and illegal immigrants is high. Ethnic Russians feel threatened by the large numbers of incoming ‘visitors’.
LONDON | Russian presidential election on Monday arose more questions than certainties, from politics to the country’s economy. As international observers cast a long shadow over the fairness and transparency of the process, thousands of Russians demonstrated to challenge Vladimir Putin’s victory, crowding into a central Moscow square to chant slogans against the former Federal Security Services director. Despite democratic concerns, Putin has once again grabbed the power in Russia….