This article that Dr Alf has brought to our attention details what was bound to happen anyway. Applying sanctions on Russia was never going to be without cost. As I expected, Vladimir Putin is taking action to stop the destabilization of those parts of Russia which are mostly Muslim on her southern flank. He has had his military develop a new electronic warfare device called the Khibiny which sits in a basket, mounted under the fuselage of its heavy bombers and stealth fighters and is capable of disabling the latest Aegis Combat systems (an integrated naval weapons system) in use on 4th generation US guided missile destroyers).

The USS Donald Cole entered the waters of the Black Sea on the 10th April 2014 and allegedly had its entire weapons system disabled by a Russian SU tactical bomber, fitted with the device while the Russian bomber simulated a missile attack 12 times before flying away (Source: Rossiykay Gazeta).

The incident with the Russian bombers flying down the UK’s West coast and then into the English channel was preceded in an incident last, year which was not reported by the UK media, in which several Russian warships went into the English channel supposedly on maneuvers.

These events are demonstrations of power projection, and the speech by Vladimir Putin last year about the ten lessons that Adolf Hitler was taught by Russia, was a clear warning to Western leaders. We should have expected Putin to not simply accept the sanctions lying down, and we either have to come to a different arrangement with him, or be prepared for the consequences which will be that we will feel the effect of sanctions ourselves and that he will not simply roll over because we tell him to. Russia is still powerful and low oil prices are not going to stay low forever, so we should work on the minds of the Russian young and their aspirations by showing them a better way by improving our own economies and creating exports and employment.

Vladimir Putin will not be there forever, so by keeping sanctions mild and ineffective, so as not to hurt ourselves, we can be seen to give him a bone to gnaw on, whilst cultivating his more pro Western successor.

John Gelmini.