MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) — Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the civil war in Ukraine are “totally absurd” and aim at humiliating Moscow which is opposite to what the United States really needs, said Luc Ferry, the French political philosopher and former minister of education, in an exclusive interview with Radio VR.
“I think sanctions against Russia are totally absurd. They simply don’t make sense. The aim of these sanctions is to humiliate Russia. Meanwhile, the interest of the US is by no means in making Russia feel humiliated.”
Besides, the scholar believes, effectiveness of the sanctions would be “close to zero” and they will be nothing more than “just irritating for Russians.” Whatever effect they would have, Ferry warned that sanctions would not “hurt just the Russian economy, they [would] hit us too.”
Moscow has repeatedly stated exactly that. Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that sanctions are counterproductive and will seriously harm Russia-US relations, as well as global stability in a telephone conversation with Barack Obama.
On July 29, the United States and the European Union announced a new round of tougher sanctions targeting companies in defense, energy and finance sectors, including major Russian banks, VTB Group and Russian Agricultural Bank, or Rosselkhozbank among others.
The West views sanctions as the primary means to punish Russia for the reunification with Crimea and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. However, Ferry is confident that, despite what people in the West believe and assert, Moscow is not responsible for the civil war raging in the neighboring country for months. The scholar named inadequate and divisive policies of the new elite that seized power in Kiev in a coup as the main reasons for the conflict in Ukraine.
He explained: “There is a certain part of Ukraine which is both Russian-speaking and well disposed towards Russia. The people adhering to such views make up a majority in the eastern part of the country. When the government brought to life by the Maidan movement introduced changes to the legislation, which deprived Russian of its status of a minority language even in these eastern areas, this was clearly unacceptable for the population in the east. So, the problem is not in Putin, as the Westerners believe. This is primarily an internal problem of Ukraine. But the Westerners did not understand it and thus pushed Ukraine towards a civil war.”
Finally, Ferry doesn’t view sanctions as efficient means to achieve peace in Ukraine. “Sanctions are a dead end in terms of finding a solution to the problem in Ukraine,” he said adding that the European Union was “very stupid to toe the line of Obama and of the United States in general.”
The latest round of sanctions comes following accusations that independence supporters in eastern Ukraine, and by extension Moscow, were to blame for the crash of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 July 17. Ferry noted that “the Western public has been pushed to believe that the missile came from the rebel-held territory” although investigation into the tragedy has not been completed. “This is disastrous for Russians and their friends,” he added.
“Especially devastating is the fact that a real investigation can’t take place because of the continued civil war,” Ferry observed urging the Russian leader to play active role in establishing what really happened to Boeing 777. “I think, in this situation, Vladimir Putin has a role to play, helping to shed light and conduct an investigation, which would explain what happened.”
Malaysian jet en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur went down in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, killing all 298 passengers on board. Dutch Safety Board is leading an international investigation to determine what caused the crash.
