EU Sanctions against Russia; Causes, Dimensions and Consequences

With the end of the Cold War a new structure emerged in the international system، which was complex، but manageable. Russia، the US، and the EU cooperated together to solve their common problems. Meanwhile، some events such as NATO invasion of Kosovo (1999) and Russia- Georgia war (2008) brought about some challenges among these actors. Despite these problems، the cooperation among these old rivals had created a situation in which all parties respected the Helsinki Final Act. The Ukraine crisis damaged these relatively good relations between Russia and the West، which started with the fall of the Berlin Wall. This crisis was an end to a period of cooperation between them in which the Western countries failed to integrate Russia in its desired structures. The new crisis in addition to the creation of intense political tensions has influenced other areas of cooperation especially the trade and economic relations. The West-Russia economic war over Ukraine has emerged in the format of reciprocal sanctions. In fact، the main question of this article is that “which factors have resulted in the emergence of the crisis between Russia and the EU and what are the dimensions and consequences of the EU’s sanctions against Russia?” The hypothesis is that some factors including the NATO expansion، the EU expansion and the US and EU’s economic and political actions in the Russia’s “Near Abroad” are among the most important causes for the recent crisis between the EU and Russia. The research approach used in this article is analytic-descriptive.