Ukraine war: Germany and the EU financed Putin’s war – Economy

John McCain knew how to get to the heart of things in compact sentences. No sooner had the former Republican presidential candidate returned from Ukraine than he spoke on CNN about his trip to the Eastern European country, which was already battered at the time. “Look,” he said, “Russia is a gas station disguised as a country.” That was in 2014, a few days after the Russian annexation of Crimea, the year the war in Donbass began. “It’s a kleptocracy. There’s corruption. It’s a nation whose economy lives solely on oil and gas,” said the Republican senator, who died in 2018. “That’s why economic sanctions are so important.”