A German business leader who has previously warned against economic sanctions on Russia has come out in support of tougher action if President Vladimir Putin fails to cooperate on stabilising the situation in Ukraine.
“Business will implement what the government and EU decide. If they say Russia is not cooperating enough and we are applying tougher sanctions, we'll back that 100 percent,” Eckhard Cordes of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations told the daily Handelsblatt in an interview published on Friday (25 July 2014).
Other business lobby groups have also begun taking a tougher tone against Moscow, especially since the downing of a Malaysian plane last week over eastern Ukraine, killing 298 people. That incident has been widely blamed on pro-Russian separatists.
