Originally Posted by Osem

And how would Putin react to that? The Russian psyche seems to be that they can endure whatever suffering is meted out but will always come back with more. Quite probably a legacy of WWII and other major historical events. Whether it's true or not, the EU being presented as trying to destroy Russia's economy in order to stir up sentiment there is the last thing we want I'd have thought. Is Putin a very clever chess player or irrational? A bit of both maybe? Great caution is required here because in circumstances such as these, one error of judgement could set off a tinderbox.