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© AFP 2015/ SAUL LOEB
Europe has suffered a great deal over the past couple of years due to US-fueled anti-Russian rhetoric that Washington forced on the EU, John Laughland, the director of Studies at the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, told Radio Sputnik.

The EU is beginning to realize that they are the ones paying the price for Washington's anti-Russian rhetoric and poor US policies in the Middle East. The United States is destroying Europe by helping to cause the refugee crisis in the Middle East and terrorist attacks, Laughland said.

"If this realization starts to dawn, then there might be a risk for Washington," the political expert from the Paris-based think-tank said.


The United States urged the EU to impose sanctions on Russia in 2014 over Moscow's alleged interference in the Ukrainian crisis — a claim repeatedly denied by the Kremlin. Russia then imposed an embargo on food imports from the EU as a retaliatory measure to counter Western anti-Russian sanctions. As a result, the economies of both Russia and the EU are hurting, while the United States gets to sit on the side.

However things might change in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks on November 13. French President Francois Hollande called for a broad coalition, including Russia and the United States, to tackle ISIL which had claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.

Now if Western countries are prepared to cooperate with Russia on the immediate priority, which is to defeat ISIL, then overall relations between Russia and the West will have to be sorted out, Laughland said.

The EU might consider ending anti-Russian sanctions to seek closer cooperation with Moscow. Now this might lead to a quarrel between Germany and France, which might want to end the sanctions, on the one side and the countries of Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, which have a strong anti-Russian stance and would want anti-Russian sanctions continued, on the other side, the political expert explained.

"That is the battle that would take place within the European Union," Laughland told Radio Sputnik.

Furthermore, with the intensifying refugee crisis in Europe, which is close to getting out of control, Europeans are starting to realize that Washington's unwise policies in Syria are destroying the continent.