Tit For Tat

The Ukrainian crisis continues to build:

…Europe appears to be absolutely shocked and is apoplectic that after several rounds of sanction escalations, Russia finally unleashed its own round of sanctions and yesterday announced a 1 year ban on all European food imports, something which will further push Europe into a triple-dip recession…

And Mario Draghi agrees:

Update: And here it is – Draghi just said Russian sanctions could add to the “downside risk.” Translation: all Putin’s fault

With inflation tumbling, credit creation imploding, core European nations’ economies floundering and the periphery re-collapsing, ECB’s Draghi decided rates were negative enough

And sabres are being rattled:

NATO’s Chief Anders Rasmussen is unleashing his latest set of ‘back down or else’ comments this morning towards Russia:

*RUSSIA MASSED ‘LARGE FORCES’ ON UKRAINE BORDER: RASMUSSEN
*RASMUSSEN TELLS RUSSIA ‘TO STEP BACK FROM THE BRINK’
*RASMUSSEN: FURTHER RUSSIA INTERVENTION ‘HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION’
*NATO: INTL COMMUNITY TO ‘REACT DECISIVELY’ IF RUSSIA INTERVENES

And weapons moved:

It Begins: Canada To Send Military Equipment To Ukraine

And

Pentagon Confirms Russia Violated US Airspace 16 Times In Last 10 Days, “Not Just Training Missions”

From the Telegraph:

Vladimir Putin is digging in for a prolonged siege and a possibly permanent reversal of trade ties with the West. There can be no other way of interpreting the decision to ban many food imports from countries that have imposed sanctions, and the parallel threat to stop car imports and flights by Western airlines over Russian airspace.

Collectively, these moves would represent the most profound breakdown in global trade since the oil embargoes of the 1970s.

Add to that the disintegration of Iraq, and a savage war between Israel and Hamas, and Egypt threatening military intervention in Libya, and we have an extremely volatile set of circumstances, developing extremely rapidly.

It’s looking rather bigger than just a Ukrainian crisis.