Indeed, why should Russia continue to pretend that it is "business as usual," when the West tries to depose the Russian government and is making normal relations impossible? Why should Russia's obligations be kept as usual, when the West is making it clear that it is free to discard any rules and any of its own obligations?
Indeed, why should Russia pay debts which the West makes under sanctions much harder to pay back, in addition to freezing (and seizing) selected Russian assets? But with the one exception of agricultural products, Moscow tried to make virtue out of weakness (or incompetence? or impotence?) by "not responding," that is, by boasting of not taking any systemic defensive and much needed counter-measures, thus letting the West to play the game of progressive intimidation in which the West was promising possible future softening of actions that hurt Russia in exchange for real, major present concessions on the ground (principle already tried with Milosevic and Yanukovich: you retreat or disarm now and we will think about our reciprocity once the situation on the ground has radically changed as a result of you making the first step or "you shoot yourself first and we will then think whether we should do something similar as we make you believe that we have promised").
In war (and this is war), besides weapons and resources, one also needs a good mind and balls. Without balls, the mind is impotent, and without the mind, balls are just sacks.
Jon Hellevig: "If this goes forward then hell is loose. Law initiative aims at terminating of payments of Russian debt to foreign countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia. This would be done by amending the civil law provision of force majeure by adding sanctions among such conditions. - The law initiative stems from a known radical lawmaker, so we cannot know if it will fly. But the respected paper Izvestia already wrote about it. Maybe testing the reactions?"
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