ROME – During an EU summit Thursday night to decide on Russian sanctions, Italy and Germany urged leaders to stop short of stronger measures, namely limiting Russian oil and gas imports and cutting Russia from the Swift international banking network, political sources say. Observers in foreign media say this is exactly what Putin wanted to hear.

  Berlin and Rome argued it would be better to keep these so-called "nuclear" measures for in case the situation worsens in Ukraine, however this has been criticised as self-interest in a time of major international crisis. 

 "These are exactly the signals that Putin was hoping for,” commented the publishing board of The Wall Street Journal. CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg, Associated Press, CNBC, and the Financial Times all have all reported and highlighted Draghi’s request not to include energy within the possible penalties. 

   Italy, France, Germany and Austria are the countries that have the most to lose from the sanctions against Moscow, because of their reliance on Russian gas and business ties. Germany buys 40 percent of the gas they consume from Russia and Italy buys 30 percent.

 Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is the international network through which over 11,000 financial institutions from 200 countries communicate and transfer money. Exclusion for Russia would mean losing access to international financial markets, paralysing trade with the West.

ln