...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
imposed new economic sanctions on Russia Wednesday, with President Barack Obama
Jedi mind meld...
declaring that Russian leaders must see that their actions supporting Ukraine's rebels "have consequences."
Though the American and European sanctions were coordinated, they nonetheless exposed fissures in what the West has tried to project as a united front in its months-long effort to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead....
Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of fomenting a pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine by sending troops and weapons across its border with the former Soviet republic, something Moscow denies. The insurgency was sparked by Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine earlier this year.
The penalties announced by the White House were broad in scope, targeting two major Russian energy firms, a pair of powerful financial institutions, eight arms firms and four individuals. Leaders in Europe, which has a far deeper economic relationship with Russia than the US, were more restrained, ordering investment and development banks on the continent to suspend financing agreements with Moscow.