ARIRANG NEWS

Описание: The European Union and the United States are under pressure to step up their game against Russia.
But damage to Russia is unlikely to come with negative consequences for the West,... and with billions of dollars of trade hanging in the balance, the stakes are high and there are no easy answers.
Kim Ji-yeon reports. Russian President Vladmir Putin has shown no signs of backing down from his decision to annex Crimea, despite threats from both sides of the Atlantic.
The speculation is that Putin is taking advantage of the reluctance of the United States and the European Union to escalate tensions into a full-blown trade war.
Such hostility will hurt Russia, which relies heavily on the EU for trade, but it could also hurt the European countries that import more than 80-percent of Russia's oil exports and more than 75-percent of its natural gas.
The trade volume between the EU and Russia is estimated to be worth more than 460-billion U.S. dollars.
An economic crisis in Russia and a troubled EU will also deal a blow to the U.S. economy just as the Fed is trying to reverse its bond-buying stimulus program.

So far, the EU has frozen assets and imposed travel bans on 21 Russians and Ukrainians... and the U.S. has imposed similar sanctions on seven people.
EU leaders may consider additional sanctions on Russia when they meet in Brussels next week... and the list is thought to contain more than 100 people.
But many analysts expect the punitive measures to exclude the chiefs of major Russian energy companies such as Gazprom head Alexei Miller.
To put pressure on Putin, the EU and the U.S. could seek to sever diplomatic links ... by removing Russia from international bodies such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.

"We have to recognize that there would be a very high risk of retaliatory sanctions by Russia against American companies and maybe Americans living in Russia."

Already in jeopardy are the many areas where the U.S. and Russia have cooperated.
The two nations have been working to contain the spread of nuclear weapons,... U.S. access to the International Space Station depends solely on Russian rocket launches... and American soldiers moving to and from Afghanistan fly through Russian airspace.
Experts believe serious economic and diplomatic repercussions will likely force the West to adjust the levels of additional sanctions.
Russia is the United States' 20th largest trading partner, with a trade volume of 38-billion U.S. dollars.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.