Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk (right) chats with David Cameron (centre) and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeld
BRUSSELS: Europe began to prepare for a possible trade war with Russia over Ukraine yesterday, with the EU executive in Brussels ordered to draft plans for much more substantive sanctions against Moscow if Vladimir Putin presses ahead with Russian territorial expansion.
But the bigger EU countries — Germany, France and Britain, all with major but very different interests at stake in Russia — split over the tactics of a new campaign with fears that a trade war would be highly risky and potentially ruinous. A two-day summit of EU leaders dominated by the Crimea crisis ended with 12 Russian politicians and military figures being added to a list of 21 so far subjected to travel bans and asset freezes.
