There are two sides to this, the other one being that Russia also gain from the relationships that are in place at present and will be wary about risking them.
Wealthy Russians deal with the UK because it benefits them and because they (in many cases) like living here. Yes they can take their money elsewhere but that's not something that comes without an impact on them - if there was somewhere just as good or better for them they'd already be doing business there.
The same applies to Germany - they are each other's largest trading partners. Sure the Germans don't want to ruin that but nor do the Russians. 30% of Germany's oil and gas comes from Russia - that's not a customer the Russian's will be eager to upset.
This is why trade supposedly stops wars - we're all interdependent - and that works both ways but it does make things complex when things like this do happen.
Personally I find it very worrying that the UK government/politicians (probably other govts too, but the article refers only about London/UK) are trying to protect the short term economic interest of an exile elite over the sovereignty of Ukraine. Without wanting to jump to conclusions from a one-page document, this shows how convoluted and undemocratic "democratic" governments are.
What about the extensive British investment interests in Russia? They have little to do with an exile elite. Reading around, a number of sources point out that sanctions in general are highly unlikely to influence Russia.
"What about the extensive British investment interests in Russia?" Well, Britain is one country in a trading block of +28 countries, so the photographed agenda is a position of one EU member state, not all. In this type of situations, not everybody is a winner. In government and finance this is called "political risk", and investments in Russia are priced accordingly.
>Former US presidential candidate Senator John McCain said he was "disappointed" by the UK's position and said European countries were "ignoring the lessons of history".
I'm not normally one to agree with McCain, but he does have a (sad) point here. As opposed as I may be to fighting costly wars in far away places, it's disheartening to recall what happened when this attitude of non-intervention was applied to Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia.
There is more to history that just comparing everything to what Hitler did. "He's just like H1Tl3RR!!", incidentally, was the rationale for the US invading Iraq.
The title of this post is wrong. It should be more along the lines of "Here's why it's in the UK's best interest not to mess with Putin". It's a UK story, not one about "the West".
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 22.8 ms ] thread"if they've got the readies, who cares about ethics?"
[NB "readies" == "cash"]
Wealthy Russians deal with the UK because it benefits them and because they (in many cases) like living here. Yes they can take their money elsewhere but that's not something that comes without an impact on them - if there was somewhere just as good or better for them they'd already be doing business there.
The same applies to Germany - they are each other's largest trading partners. Sure the Germans don't want to ruin that but nor do the Russians. 30% of Germany's oil and gas comes from Russia - that's not a customer the Russian's will be eager to upset.
This is why trade supposedly stops wars - we're all interdependent - and that works both ways but it does make things complex when things like this do happen.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100026745/...
in which what would be the point and who pays?
I'm not normally one to agree with McCain, but he does have a (sad) point here. As opposed as I may be to fighting costly wars in far away places, it's disheartening to recall what happened when this attitude of non-intervention was applied to Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia.