EU Russia sanctions close in on finance, trade, aviation, media

Russia’s military advance across Ukraine has galvanized global public opinion to the point that timid EU governments and the Brussels bureaucracy have been forced to remove their blinders and make far-reaching sanctions decisions that only three or four days ago were considered totally impossible. Within the EU, fear of the political costs of being seen as sitting by and doing little in the face of the Russian invasion of Eastern Europe’s largest independent country has apparently tipped the ba…