THE ANALYSIS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION’S POLICY IN COUNTERING THE ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AGAINST THE EUROPEAN UNION (EU) AS A RESULT OF CRIMEAN PENINSULA ANNEXATION (2014 – 2018)

Abstract

As soon as the European Union (EU) imposed the economic sanctions against the Russian Federation, the Russian Federation has experienced a major significant changes in its national economic policy and economic foreign policy, this is taken as a response to the economic sanctions imposed by the EU. The economic sanctions by EU has inflicted a damage in national economic as well as deter the Russian Federation national interest in Ukraine, particularly on Crimean Peninsula annexation. Seeing to the impact of economic sanctions and EU’s dependency on the Russian Federations gas export and food and agricultural product import, the Russian Federation counter the economic sanctions against the EU on 6 August 2014. The counter of economic sanctions by the Russian aims to put EU as the same position of the Russian Federation as the object of the imposed economic sanctions. Hence, this thesis explores the Russian Federation’s policy in countering the economic sanctions against the EU from 2014 – 2018, while see the annexation of Crimean Peninsula by the Russian Federation in 2013 as the background of the EU in imposing the economic sanctions against the Russian Federation. This thesis adopts Tilman’s threat perception concept to understand the dimensions threaten the Russian Federation, and connected to Hunter’s concept of economic sanction and counter economic sanctions to discuss its correlation with the Russian Federation decision in countering the economic sanctions. This research found that there are several findings. First, the annexation of Crimean Peninsula by the Russian Federation derived from its national interest, since the Russian Federation sees it as the former part of USSR. Second, the European Union sees the annexation of Crimean Peninsula as a threat to them in many ways, such as geopolitical interest, regional stability and EU member expansion. So that the EU imposed the economic sanctions. Third, the imposing of economic sanctions by the EU against the Russian Federation poses a dilemma for the sanctioner (EU), since EU is depend on the Russian Federation import and export activities. Lastly, the counter of economic sanctions by the Russian Federation threaten EU for theirs long term project, seeing to the economic partnership expansion and market shift policy by the Russian Federation from 2014 – 2018, or during the economic sanctions period.