At the EU summit in Brussels, new sanctions were adopted over the case of Alexei Navalny.

The sanctions list included six high-ranking representatives of the Russian special services, the Ministry of Defense and the Presidential Administration, as well as the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology.

According to the Europeans, these persons "could have known about the poisoning or were involved in its planning."

That is, the Russian authorities, according to the EU, are organizing political riots using chemical weapons in public places.

Thus endangering the lives of many people.

As a result, officials will pay for the crime allegedly committed by the state by banning them from entering Europe and freezing their assets.

But there are no grounds to say that what is happening is somehow significantly changing the nature of Russia's contacts with the outside world.

Berlin, which initiated the new sanctions package, considers it important to maintain "good or at least reasonable relations" with Moscow, since, according to German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, his country lives on "trade and scientific exchange."

Meanwhile, the current events have become the third serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West.

The first happened in 2014-2015 because of the Crimea and Donbass.

The second was in 2018, when London accused the Russian authorities of poisoning the Skripals.

Today, the reason for the next attacks was the story with Navalny, which was sucked from the finger.

A detailed analysis of the accusations, which has been carried out by experts more than once, proves their artificial nature.

The USA and Great Britain were the beneficiaries of the abovementioned processes; today Germany is the initiator.

This looks strange, since the EU suffered the greatest economic damage from the exchange of sectoral sanctions.

Actually, the United States, which has an extremely limited volume of trade relations with our country, using Europe as a lever of pressure on Russia, actually risked nothing.

The Europeans, realizing well that Russia has the resources for a very painful response for them, twisted the sanctions war into meaningless and not causing any particular harm, such as adding more and more names to endless lists.

The expulsion of diplomats can be attributed to the same harmless sanctions.

The Russian leadership reacted calmly to the attacks.

The peaceful tone of his comments was directed at continental Europe.

She had to solve a global question: is it worth it to continue to be a weak-willed and obedient instrument in the hands of the Americans.

And it looks like they managed to get through.

Germany seized the initiative and began to act independently in the same direction in which the United States and Great Britain had previously distinguished themselves.

It is not very clear why she needed to stir up the anti-Russian scandal.

The most significant asset in bilateral relations - the Nord Stream 2 pipeline - is carefully guarded by the Germans and rebuffed by Washington when it tries to force them to leave the project.

The whole chain of recent events looks like absolute nonsense.

Navalny's case has already turned into a phantasmagoria.

It got to the point that the prosecutors started talking about "double poisoning."

Twice used poison, the strength of which is sufficient to eliminate an entire regiment - such a play of the imagination is difficult to understand within the framework of ordinary human logic.

I believe that this time Moscow should abandon its usual peacefulness and respond really quickly and harshly.

Europe must finally realize that endlessly playing anti-Russian games is no joke, and Russia has a large reserve of funds that it can use to hurt those who like to warm their hands on Russophobia.

The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.