Vladimir Putin’s speech and then the deployment of soldiers were at the top of the news in Europe and the US, with Moscow’s Komsomolskaya Pravda highlighting the entirety of the speech and with the New York Times using the adjective in the headline, “Russia recognizes separatists from Ukraine, in sinister movement”.
In China, it was the main topic on the social network Sina Weibo, with posts highlighted for recognition of the two regions, with news from the CCTV network, and just below for statements by the Ukrainian government. Russia and Ukraine are both strategic Chinese allies, and Beijing is now struggling to appear distant from Moscow.
Attention in Russian and other newspapers soon turned to the next step: the economic punishments the United States, Germany and France are planning to deliver. The NYT said that Washington had announced sanctions on the two breakaway republics, “but not for the time being against Russia.”
Russian financiers Kommersant and RBC already had reports forwarded and featured prominently. The first underlines that the “most obvious target” is the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, “but the authorities of Germany and the European Union, although they have mentioned it as a potential object of sanctions, do not have an unequivocal position on the matter”.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi called a press conference last Friday to warn: “We are discussing sanctions with the EU and, in the course of these discussions, we made known our position, that they should focus on narrow sectors, without include energy”.
If actions against Nord Stream 2 are limited, the second target is Russian banks. This is the main concern of the RBC, which points out the total ban on the purchase of debt securities and the removal of the country’s institutions from the dollar system.
But what can make the sanctions “catastrophic”, assesses Kommersant, is if they reach the area of technology, as in the case of Russian chips, designed locally but produced in Taiwan. The smartphone industry could be derailed, says the newspaper.
