An American friend of mine who is married to a Russian and used to do business in Moscow and in Eastern Europe laid it on the line with me this morning. I'd been sparring with him about independent polling that's reported to show Russians supporting Putin's assertions with regards to Ukraine.
"All Russians have been trained that when somebody you don't know asks questions, it's a KGB plant. I lived there and I knew that. Everybody knows its a police state. Why pretend otherwise?"
The comment came in response to me pointing out that "new research by the independent Levada Centre polling group shows 64 percent of Russians blame the West for the Ukrainian conflict, 61 percent are not worried by sanctions and 63 percent think Russian media coverage of the crisis is objective.:
Putin & the Point of No Return
I mention this on hearing that the new European Union sanctions against Russia may actually, in some cases, go farther than those imposed by the U.S. This is a big about-face, especially by the Germans who get around a third of their energy from Russia.
German public opinion shifted after the shooting-down of the plane over Ukraine, with 52 percent now in favor of tougher measures toward Russia, up from 25 percent in March, according to a TNS-Infratest poll commissioned by Spiegel magazine.
Today’s EU move was “inevitable,” and “additional steps are possible,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement. “It’s now up to the Russian leadership to decide if it wants to follow the path of de-escalation and cooperation.”
It's important to point out that Germany's "Iron Lady" undoubtedly has a greater understanding of what's going on in Moscow under Putin. She grew up in the former Soviet satellite state of East Germany and speaks Russian, just as Vladimir Putin speaks German following his stationing in Berlin during the cold war while working for the Soviet secret police, the KGB.
