There was a nice touch today in the release of a short joint statement from Germany, France, the UK and US over the Russian assassination attempt in the UK. White House release.
Releasing it together shows some solidarity on a very simple subject - the use of chemical weapons to achieve an objective - something Russia and Syria have repeated over and over. They don’t seem to mind what the world thinks about killing children with chemical weapons, but maybe now they will understand that the line crossed twice was a bit too much. There is going to be a reaction, and consequences the Russians could not have foreseen. Diplomats have been expelled before. Business ventures cancelled. Harsh words have been exchanged. Those usually are diplomatic things that nobody pays any attention to. This time, it has a different feel. The US is imposing additional sanctions on Russia. More will probably follow. It just doesn’t feel the same as those diplomatic games played by countries trying to sound like they care, but not really caring. I’m not sure it will deter the Russians from doing this kind of thing in the future, but they sure will be more careful than they were on this one.
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