Institute of Modern Russia

In early September, at the NATO summit in Wales, Western leaders gathered to discuss expanded economic sanctions against Russia, and what the new team of European Union commissioners coming to office in November can do about Russian president Vladimir Putin’s underhanded war in Ukraine. They appeared to have no illusions that they might come to terms with Putin on the issue.

Earlier this year the West responded to Russian aggression in Ukraine by imposing sanctions against Russia, including banning a number of Russian officials from entering the United States and EU, freezing their accounts, and targeting Russia’s finance, energy, and defense sectors. Russia has retaliated with an embargo on a number of food products from the West. While Russian officials might get excited about the fact that the EU will be unable to export their apples, cheese, ham, and olives to Russia, the embargo doesn’t come as upsetting news to most Europeans—prices for these food products in the EU will go down.

Despite the food ban, the biggest concern for most European leaders in this matter is not financial, but political: in particular, the threat of a damaged reputation. EU leaders are already looking for ways to protect their commercial interests—exploring opportunities in new markets and developing subsidies to compensate farmers for their losses. In France, following the escalation of the Ukraine crisis, the much-criticized Mistral deal with Russia was finally suspended in spite of possible penalties provided by the contract. The French authorities would rather deal with these penalties than face public disapproval.

Any Russian officials sneering at the hardships of EU farmers might be forgetting that the Russian economy is on the verge of recession. Capital flight in the first half of 2014 has reached $75 billion, inflation is growing, and the ruble has hit a historic low. Russia’s Central Bank has already raised its key rate several times, threatening credit rates. Car sales in the country have declined by 25.8 percent, and Russia’s major airline carrier Aeroflot lost more than $50 million in the first half of 2014 alone. Not so long ago, the Russian oil giant Rosneft was asking the government for 1.5 trillion rubles ($40.5 billion) to repay its large debts.

Despite the official EU stance condemning the Russia-sponsored war in eastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has a dwindling but extant number of allies, and even friends, in Europe; though the voices of those who support him grow weaker and are ridiculed as attention is drawn to the comments of the Kremlin’s Internet “trolls.” One of these is French economist Jacques Sapir, who co-penned a book titled Russian Transition: Twenty Years Later (La transition russe, vingt ans après) with Alexander Nekipelov, chairman of Rosneft’s board of directors, and has desperately tried to defend Putin on Twitter. Another is Thierry Mariani, member of the French Parliament and former cabinet member, who called France’s decision to suspend delivery of the Mistral helicopter carriers to Moscow a “suicide.”

Another sign of Putin’s influence over European minds has been the delay in introducing expanded sanctions against Russia. The sanctions were delayed because of the hesitation of Finland’s prime minister Alexander Stubb, who claimed that the time was not right. It is noteworthy, though, that at about that same time, the website of MTV3, one of the largest private Finnish TV channels, reported that the crises in Ukraine and Syria were boosting sales of army equipment in one of Helsinki’s largest stores. According to the store’s owner, Valtteri Lindholn, the gear goes to Ukraine through Russia and ends up on the battlefield.

In the pro-Kremlin media, the European Union has frequently been denounced as useless. For example, it’s often been pointed out that the main weapon baroness Catherine Ashton, European Commission high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, would be employing against the Kremlin’s atrocities was her expression of “concern,” which could turn into “deep concern,” if the Kremlin behaved especially badly. More than once, several European diplomats confided to me off the record that Ashton would never quarrel with Putin. Some say that, just like UK prime minister David Cameron, Ashton, also a British politician, would never risk impeding the free flow of Russian investments into the UK’s economy.

Since president-elect of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker unveiled his new team on September 10, though, it’s become clear that the tone of the exchanges with Moscow will change. It seems that Juncker’s new team will better meet the challenge of Kremlin aggression in eastern Ukraine. At the end of October, Federica Mogherini, the forty-one-year-old Italian minister of foreign affairs, will succeed Baroness Ashton as head of European diplomacy. Mogherini’s first issued statement has already triggered a strong reaction in the media. “The Kremlin acts against the interests of its own people,” she said, calling Russia solely responsible for the existing sanctions against it. “Putin never stuck to the accord he had agreed to, not in Geneva, not in Normandy, not in Berlin,” she also noted, showing that she understands who she is dealing with.

Another new appointee to Juncker’s team is Donald Tusk, the fifty-seven-year-old prime minister of Poland, who succeeds Herman Van Rompuy as head of the European Council. Tusk is a historian and a former member of Solidarity, the Polish trade union movement. He has already claimed that he plans to build his relationship with Russia from a completely different perspective. Tusk named the Ukraine crisis as one of the key challenges to Europe’s security, and he means to take harsh measures against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

Tusk might have to put his words into practice soon, as Putin’s appetite is growing by the day. The Russian president’s recent comment on Kazakhstan’s statehood caused a great stir: “President Nazarbaev made a unique thing. He created a state in a territory where the state never existed. Kazakhs never had statehood.” It sounded as if, following a triumphant annexation of Crimea under the slogan “Crimea is ours,” Putin might be looking to take part of Kazakhstan, too—for example, the part where the Baikonur Cosmodrome (the Russian space launch facility) is located. Baikonur is strategically important to Russia: even though Russia’s space program has been in decline, Russia pays an annual fee of $115 million for renting the cosmodrome from Kazakstan.

Another recent incident might also prompt Tusk to push back against Putin’s aggression. A week ago, Russia’s Federal Security Service detained, they claim, an “Estonian spy” in Russia. Estonia protested, saying that the security officer in question was in fact kidnapped from Estonian territory near the border. A former Soviet republic, Estonia is now a NATO member, a fact that is a thorn in Putin’s side. Still, the incident didn’t cause much reaction among the international community.

Finally, there is one person on Junker’s team who will undoubtedly take a tough approach toward Moscow: the commission’s first vice president, Frans Timmermans, the Dutch minister of foreign affairs who will succeed Neelie Kroes. After the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, which killed 193 Dutch citizens, he gave a somber and eloquent speech before the United Nations Security Council that had a great impact on the audience and the public. Known for his moderate position toward Russia before the crash, Timmermans has changed his stance and is a valuable addition to the group of European politicians who will have it to prove that Europe’s way of dealing with Russia is not limited to expressions of “deep concern.”