A War of Escalation Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center

A War of Escalation
Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center
March 19. 2014 | http://carnegie.ru/2014/03/19/war-of-escalation/h4x2

The Moscow stock exchange seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief this week -- or perhaps shrug its shoulders -- upon hearing the news on Monday about the U.S. and EU sanctions against Russian officials. In fact, it recovered slightly after the sharp fall last week; the ruble, still in a much-weakened position, has regained a bit of ground against both the dollar and the euro, too. Obviously, investors had been expecting much harsher sanctions, and were momentarily relieved. The Russian individuals targeted in the Western sanctions have been mostly dismissive; some, like Vice Premier Dmitry Rogozin, even sarcastic. Only one of them is even known to own property in Europe, and it is in Switzerland, a non-E.U. country.