Austria and Turkey do not adhere to sanctions against Russia

The story of the poisoning of the former Russian spy, which took place in English territory, provoked an almost unanimous response in the western part. The US, despite President Trump's feelings toward Putin, expelled the largest amount of Russian diplomatic staff, sixty people, and closed the Seattle consulate, because it was too close to American industries of national interest. This attitude shows how, despite the many changes in the US government, the powers that remain in their position against the Kremlin are still important in the US political landscape. For the time being, the Russian response has remained limited to the threats of a symmetrical response, which should not be long in coming, against all those states that used the expulsions of Moscow's diplomatic staff. The Russian government has repeatedly stated that the Western attitude reveals a deep sentiment against Russia and that the risk of toning in the Cold War is increasingly concrete. On the other hand it was from the period of the invasion of Crimea that Russia was not subjected to such a diplomatic offensive. One of the aspects that surely Putin did not expect and that reveals, for his part, the great errors of evaluation, was a response so uniform by the Western countries. However, there are two nations that have not joined the diplomatic response to the poisoning of London: Austria, a member of the European Union and Turkey, a member of the Atlantic Alliance. These are two defections that need to be carefully assessed for the relative political implications that they may cause. In the government of Vienna there is a nationalist formation that has very close ties with Putin's party; the motivation is not to interrupt a relationship of friendship between the two countries, which could be an important channel to reopen the dialogue between Russia and the West: this motivation does not convince analysts, who see in the proximity between the political formations of the two countries a sort of bond due to the proximity of the ideals of control of society and of restricted democracy. It is a dangerous precedent within the European Union, which could favor a similar attitude of other states governed by forms that were said to be close to Putin's policy. At the same time, the Austrian government seems to lend itself to becoming a sort of privileged place for Putin's action against Europe, an action marked by the will to aim to divide Brussels members as much as possible. The story once again points to the need for a common action in European foreign policy, which should not admit defections by member states. As for Turkey, the failure to sanction Russia is a further sign of how far Ankara is away from the Atlantic Alliance. The reasons for Turkish behavior lie in the closeness that the Ankara government has established with Moscow, for its mutual interests in Syria, a factor that has contributed to further worsening relations with the United States. The attitude of Turkey, not only in this specific case, is an element to be assessed on Erdogan's true loyalty to the Atlantic Alliance and leads to questioning what are now the reasons of convenience for the other member states on the Turkish permanence. within the Alliance. In both cases, both for the European Union and for the Atlantic Alliance, the time seems to come to introduce reforms capable of sanctioning those who remain within a supranational organization only for reasons of interest and do not adapt to common policies. Countries like Putin's Russia have focused a lot on these weaknesses to divide Western countries for their geopolitical interests and this type of actions could increase if this lack of common defense remains.