Back off seven times

The terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge and the subsequent Russian strikes on the energy, military command and communications facilities of Ukraine thoroughly shook up Kyiv's Western allies, who these days have to decide how to react to all this and what to do with it all.

Without risking admitting that this new reality took them by surprise and that they were unprepared for such a dramatic turn of events in the Ukrainian conflict, the countries of the collective West make it clear that they are still a united and well-coordinated team.

And this team, after brainstorming one after the other (first at the level of the G7, and then NATO), will be able to quickly work out the solutions it and Ukraine need and find justice for the “completely unrestrained” Russia.

The very first Western responses to the Russian strikes after the Crimean Bridge was blown up, which continued to appear in the news feed at the speed of spam, resembled the competition “Who will shout louder” or “Who will spit further”.

Spit on who?

Of course, to Russia.

By the way, Western leaders did not notice the terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge - not a word about it.

How to get water in your mouth.

But Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, which were not expected, have become a hot, widely discussed topic.

Those who were silent like a fish all past weekend, starting from Monday, started talking at once.

It was something like a session of collective political striptease, when one after another "our former Western partners", as Sergey Lavrov likes to say, bared their torsos, showing off their muscles, in order to have a frightening effect on Moscow.

Say, look how pumped up we all are here, so you are there, in Moscow, do not forget who you are dealing with: we will show you, you will answer us for Ukraine.

The first to give their collective response was to the "Group of Seven", uniting the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan.

President Zelensky, who initiated an urgent meeting of its leaders, was extremely resolute: now Moscow will know what it costs.

In his address to the participants of the G7 online meeting, he urged them to limit the prices of Russian oil and gas so that their supplies would not bring profit to Russia.

True, he did not explain how this could be done: they say, I give a strategic directive, and you will sort it out among yourselves in working order.

And he also repeated his previous position that "there can be no dialogue with this leader of Russia, who has no future."

That is, the confirmed request position of Kyiv in relation to Western leaders is also that the “Group of Seven” will have to somehow change the Russian leadership.

This is what Vladimir Zelensky ordered, not admitting that he himself could disappear from the political space much earlier - this is a much more realistic scenario.

And so, after listening to all this, the "Group of Seven" gave its collective answer.

“We assured President Zelensky that we are unwaveringly and resolutely committed to providing Ukraine with the necessary support so that it can defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the G7 said in a statement following the virtual meeting.

The G7 also vowed to “impose further economic sanctions against Russia, including against individuals and entities that, both in Russia and abroad, provide political or economic support to Russia’s illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory.”

And one more quote, longish and ornate, but very entertaining.

We will have to quote it in full: “With a view to a viable post-war peace settlement, we remain ready to reach agreements with interested countries and institutions and Ukraine on sustainable security and other commitments to help Ukraine defend itself, secure its free and democratic future, and contain future Russian aggression."

The question arises: is that all?

All this verbal rubbish, repeatedly poured from statement to statement throughout the year, is this the very new collective response of the West to Russia?

And where is what Zelensky requested from the allies after the strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure?

Where is the price limit for Russian oil and gas, where is the change of the political regime in Russia?

Finally, where is at least an "air shield" for Ukraine - a sufficient number of modern and effective air defense systems?

No, nothing is said about it.

The G7 countries also believe that Russian funds should be used in the process of post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.

Well, we already know without them that we will have to rebuild.

But this will happen after the defeat of Ukraine.

“Then, after the victory, we will restore everything,” Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Pyotr Tolstoy wrote about this on his Telegram channel.

We go further: “The G7 condemns any deliberate damage to critical infrastructure and welcomes the investigation into the incident on the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

Well, so we condemn and want to investigate, but they don’t give us any.

In general, the swing before the emergency meeting was formidable, but the G7 gave birth to a mouse.

This becomes especially obvious when compared with the previous decisions of the G7, taken throughout the year, in which there was at least some specifics.

Let me remind you that the annual G-7 summit, held in June in southern Germany at Elmau Castle, was intended as a demonstration of determination to continue helping Ukraine and take radical new measures against Russia, including the imposition of a ceiling on world oil prices, as well as a ban on the import of Russian gold.

However, even then the summit participants admitted that it was very difficult to reach a new level of sanctions, which would aggravate the situation of the Russian economy.

Not all countries in the world were ready to support the initiatives of the G7, and the G7 members themselves did not quite understand how to tighten sanctions without harming their own economies.

Today, this task has become completely unmanageable.

The latest decision by OPEC+ to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day - a response to attempts to make the global hydrocarbon market hostage to the political games of the G7 - was regarded in the West as a collusion between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Although the "conspiracy" of Moscow and Riyadh consists only in their common desire to protect the oil market from extra-market political manipulations and let it live and develop according to its own market laws.

This is exactly what responsible world powers, leading exporters, capable of protecting the market from new shocks by their decisive, independent actions, should do.

So did Moscow and Riyadh.

It was the final nail in the coffin of the G7's announced plan to cap world oil prices.

But then what did Vladimir Zelensky call for the G7 when talking about the fate of Russian oil?

What did he expect?

In general, the swing was formidable, but all the steam went into the sand.

Crackling general phrases in the last statement of the G7, in the absence of an understanding of what buttons you can still try to press, showed that our “former Western partners” did not have any new serious measures against Russia in the arsenal.

Everything that could be entered has already been entered, the rest simply cannot be entered.

That's the whole story.

The stock of sanctions is almost wasted - practically for nothing - although they are trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

However, saying to the G7: “Measure seven times in relations with Russia, that is, think before you do something” is useless.

So it remains to say to G7: "Leave me alone seven times."

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.