The third round of sanctions in the wake of the downing of MH17 bit deep. At the same moment, Janet Yellen’s Fed finally ended QE3, tightening credit conditions around the world. And then cooperation in OPEC broke down. Saudi Arabia ended its production restraint and oil prices collapsed. With or without sanctions, by the autumn of 2014 Russia would have been in serious financial difficulty. The combination of sanctions, Fed monetary tightening and a plunge in commodity prices was devastating. So devastating, in fact, that it has raised the question of whether this conjunction was entirely
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