Tag Archives: Kyiv International Institute for Sociology

Why Europe Hasn’t Joined Our Ukraine Crusade

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It typically costs $100 to fill a 12-gallon tank in Italy today. The country imports much of its oil from Russia. Which is why its government is reluctant to sign on to President Obama's anti-Putin campaign. [Credit: NWA online]

It typ­i­cal­ly costs $100 to fill a 12-gal­lon tank in Italy today. The coun­try imports much of its oil from Rus­sia. Which is why its gov­ern­ment is reluc­tant to sign on to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s anti-Putin cam­paign. [Cred­it: NWA online]

A gal­lon of unlead­ed gas costs near­ly $9 here in Todi, a tran­quil Ital­ian town whose roots stretch back mil­len­nia to pre-Etr­uscan times.  Diesel is a bit cheap­er at $8.50 per gal­lon, mean­ing that it costs $100 to fill a 12-gal­lon tank.

Which may help explain why Pres­i­dent Obama’s cru­sade to impose sys­tem­at­ic eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on Rus­sia has so far fiz­zled.  Euro­peans are unwill­ing to pay the costs that dis­rup­tions in trade with Rus­sia would impose on them.

One can hard­ly blame them. Con­tin­ue read­ing →