The US House of Representatives describes Russia’s actions in Crimea as an act of aggression arguing that Crimea’s bid to become independent and join Russia is illegitimate. Some hint that the moves are orchestrated by the Kremlin.
One suggestion is to exclude Russia from the G8, the forum for the governments of a group of the eight leading industrialized countries. Russia was added to the group in 1998, after first being a sub-member since the G7 arranged their first meeting in Moscow in April 1996. It is widely recognized that including Russia to the group was a political move aimed at including the country as much as possible into world affairs following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Excluding Russia from the group will be a hard setback for Moscow. President Vladimir Putin warns that such potential sanctions against Russia over Ukraine would be a double-edged sword due to the interdependence of global trade.
Russia’s most important trade partner is, however, not the USA but the European Union.
Possible sanctions against Russia are widely supported by several of the largest economies in Europe. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said earlier this week that European Union sanctions could be imposed as early as this week given that Russia doesn’t change its position on the Crimea crisis. Prime Minister of Great Britain David Cameron said on Tuesday that there is a chance Russia could lose its G8 membership because of its position on the Crimean crisis. The European Union last week called for a halt in talks on visa liberalization with Russia.
G8 paid for Barents nuclear safety
In the Barents Region, Russia’s membership in G8 has strongly improved the nuclear safety situation. Back in 2002, the G8 members decided to grant $10 billon each to Russia and former Soviet Union republics to secure weapon grade radioactive material and other sources of nuclear stuff. A large portion of the funding are spent on naval yards both on the Kola Peninsula and in Severodvinsk.
More than 100 nuclear powered submarines are decommissioned, their highly radioactive uranium fuel are shipped to safe storage and huge reactor compartments are stored onshore in a brand new, state-of-the-art storage in Saida bay half way between Murmansk and Russia’s Arctic border to Norway.
Excluding Russia from G8 now will be especially hard for Moscow since next summit, the 40th for the group, is to be held in Sochi on June 4-5 this year.
