"the ceasefire doesn't do much. When the peacekeepers show up the gun fire stops, but, then they leave and it goes back as before...
June 17, 2015
By Andrew Higgins
June 17, 2015
By Andrew Higgins
BRUSSELS — The European Union (click here) is set to extend by six months economic sanctions against Russia, calming fears that Greece’s acrimonious negotiations over its debt crisis might allow Russia to break the unity of the 28-nation bloc in its response to the conflict in Ukraine.
A
decision to prolong the sanctions, which expire at the end of July, was
made by European ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday and is expected
to be ratified at a meeting of foreign ministers early next week in
Luxembourg, diplomats in Brussels said.
Moscow
lobbied hard against a renewal of the sanctions, imposed last year in
tandem with similar measures by the United States after Russia annexed
Crimea in March and then provided support to separatist rebels in
eastern Ukraine. Decisions on sanctions require unanimity, so Russia
needed to win over only one European Union country to block an extension. But it failed in efforts to secure a blocking vote
from any of the countries that have shown little enthusiasm for
sanctions. These include Greece, Cyprus and Hungary, all of which Moscow
has actively courted....
