Russia may have been excluded from this week’s G7 summit in Germany, but with EU sanctions against Russia up for renewal this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin used a visit to Italy on Wednesday as a platform to speak out.
This week, World Views contributor Rebecca Cruise sits down with OU Political Science professor Paul Goode to discuss Russian President Vladmir Putin’s recent trip.
“Putin perhaps hoped to be able to put a little bit extra pressure or at least sew some seeds of doubt in the minds of EU members [about renewing sanctions],” Goode says.
Italy is an important EU ally of Russia, and Putin used his trip to point out that the sanctions were harmful for Italy’s economy as well.
“[This trip] provided [Putin] with an opportunity to try to appeal to European pocketbooks to make it clear that sanctions are impacting [European] budgets,” Goode says.
According to Goode, although Putin may be “trying to drive a wedge between EU members,” appealing to EU economic interests may not be a fruitful strategy.
“Russia has already announced it is pivoting its economy away from Europe … And so as much as it wants to try to maintain the current economic relations it has with these [European] partners … it doesn’t appear to be in the cards as far as a long term strategy goes,” Goode says.
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