#Germany blames contraction on #Russiansanctions

Finance ministry also says uncertainty over crisis was likely to have dampened industrial activity

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel arrive for a cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin. Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

(Read more)

External Expansion, www.externalexpansion.net,

Putin's Food Ban Splits EU on Wisdom of Russia Sanctions

Finland’s biggest dairy producer, Valio, had shipped almost half of all its exports to Russia before the ban. Photo: Andrei Makhonin / Vedomosti External Expansion, www.externalexpansion.net, The European Union's united front on Russia sanctions seems to be buckling, as Eastern European countries hit hardest by Russia's retaliatory food import bans begin to question the wisdom of wrecking their economies in the name of a strategy that has seen the crisis in Ukraine only escalate... (Read more)

Russian sanctions start to bite as growth forecasts are downgraded

Lending restrictions are not causing immediate panic but, with food shortages and price rises, the winter outlook is grim.

Six months after the confrontation over Ukraine first blew up, the damage is starting to be counted in dollars, euros and roubles. And as Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met his counterparts from Ukraine, Germany and France, he will have been aware that it is Russia that has most to lose from a protracted economic stand-off with the west....

(Read more)

External Expansion, www.externalexpansion.net,