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The rhetoric of American and Russian officials caught fire. The fighting on the ground is getting fiercer. And the battle being fought with the tools of economic warfare shows no signs of slowing down.
The events of the past days have made it clear that the gap between Moscow and its opponents is widening, weakening the prospects for diplomacy. Ukraine and its Western backers seem to be losing what little patience they have with Russia as it continues to press ahead with an invasion that, if successful, threatens to turn the post-World War II world order on its head.
The United States and the European Union have already enacted several rounds of sanctions intended to harm the Russian economy as punishment for the invasion, but new efforts to send much-needed weapons to Ukraine are gaining traction. Representatives from 40 countries gathered at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany this week to help organize and coordinate the arms delivery.
Those listening in the Kremlin will likely see Austin’s statement as evidence that Washington and the West are looking to corner Russia and prevent it, as Putin has long promised, from emerging as the global superpower it was during the Cold War.
“It seems that they are not really interested in the negotiations, those who demand that Russia not win and call on others to defeat Russia and break the destruction of Russia, which they are doing by injecting Ukraine with weapons and lots and lots of weapons,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. The negotiations are unlikely to be fruitful.
Moscow’s economic warfare efforts are now moving beyond retaliatory sanctions. Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Wednesday it would halt shipments of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria, claiming that the two countries refused to pay in rubles. In fact, this means that Russia is now arming energy exports.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the move a “direct attack”, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called it “blackmail”. The two leaders said officials were preparing for this scenario.
“It is clear that at the moment natural gas is being used more and more as a political and economic weapon in the current war,” Bulgarian Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov said.
Russia shows few signs of abating despite the West’s more aggressive stance. Rather, Lavrov warned that the threat of nuclear war “is real and cannot be underestimated.”
The decision to arm Ukraine may eventually help win the war. But with Russian forces being fired upon with Western weapons, Putin may not be inclined to demand peace.
CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, Kylie Atwood, Kevin Liptak and Alex Marquardt contributed to this report.
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