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Press TV has conducted an interview with Jan Oberg, founder of transnational.org from Lund, about the European Union putting into effect a new round of sanctions against Russia.

Press TV: First of all I would like to get your opinion about this latest round of sanctions which are coupled by sanctions by the White House as well against Russia. Conducive to peace in Eastern Ukraine?

Oberg: No. There is very little the parties are doing for peace in Ukraine as a whole except, I would say, probably for President Putin and President Poroshenko’s work now on the cease-fire, and I think it is a seven point program for stabilization and some kind of peace and stopping of military violent activity.

The West has done nothing except confrontation both by NATO’s decisions in Wales about the rapid reaction force and these kinds of things and prepositioning of military equipment and now these sanctions which are repeated sanctions or tightened sanctions or increased sanctions, all this of course can only be seen by the Russian side as very unfriendly and not productive from the peace point of view and I expect Russia to rather soon retaliate against it which of course also will not contribute to anything good.

We are on the wrong track, and having said all that I just want to add, we must not forget that the current crisis in Ukraine was caused mainly, not only but mainly, by the Western US-led neoconservative idea about regime change in Kiev and then that government structured that government’s outlook and values and its decision, which it revoked, but its decision to begin with to cancel Russian as an official language, which of course make the people in Eastern Ukraine to go berserk.

Everybody is kind of responsible here, but the responsibility all should have, which statements do not have any or anymore, is peace.

There is no more important thing than peace to work for and they do not do it.

Press TV: What does the West particularly the US mean by this new round of sanctions because as you have just pointed out it is extremely clear that it is not conducive towards peace and Russia will respond in a way that will only exacerbate the situation?

Oberg: Yes and that is where we are. I mean instead of holding back and waiting until we see whether there is an improvement in the situation such as what would come out of the ceasefire and the negotiations between the two main parties, there is a pressure, further pressure put on Russia as a punishment.

Press TV: But why is that so?

Oberg: The West today uses two means basically to perceive the world through and change the world according to its own interest.

One is the military you just referred to. Obama’s speech yesterday about how to fight ISIS, the only message is, we are going to kill them. He does not have a political vision anymore for the Middle East. He does not have civilian means. He does not have a diplomatic plan, and he does not even have a strategy. He thinks you could get at terrorism by killing terrorists, which is bizarre and very sad. Intellectually it is nonsense.

And the other means the West uses now everywhere it feels necessary is sanctions. Your own country is a victim of it too. Now we do not have better intellectual standards among statesmen and foreign ministries in West. Intellectually it is a decay.

There are so many other things we could do. There are so many other things we did earlier. We were much more creative in Europe and the Western world 20 years ago. We had enormously fine statesmen like Willy Brandt, etc. This type of characters with an intellect and a moral standing are dying out in the West and that is of course why the West is going down.