Political relations with the national parliaments of foreign states are cultivated by bilateral and multilateral parliamentary friendship groups. Their purpose is to promote ongoing dialogue with the parliamentary institutions of one or more partner states. Primarily, this involves exchanges of information and opinions with members of other parliaments. In parallel to these discussions with their peers, the groups also organise meetings with government and civil-society representatives.

Austria: Relations between Austria and Russia are coloured by a shared imperial history and close trade ties, especially in the energy field. There are many areas of cooperation with Russia from political and security issues to justice and home affairs which are discussed at regular high level political and official meetings. For Austria any kind of escalation against Russia should be avoided as Russia and the EU have strategic reasons for reasonable co-operation.

Russia has never systematically lobbied its interests in Brussels. There is no pro-Russian  lobby at EU level that politically supports Russia, promote its interests in Brussels , and works systematically on improving EU-Russian relations. We’re not talking here about Russia’s ‘public diplomacy and the use of public relations companies such as Brussels-based PR firm GPlus and others or the work undertaken by the Russian mission to the EU working on intelligence gathering and media handling.

The EU message (read the EU + USA) to Russia is clear: Choose the path to diplomacy and de-escalation or face increasing isolation and tighter and tighter sanctions.

The historically developed perception of Russia as fundamentally threatening to the United States’ values and interests strengthened domestic groups in American politics that worked to preserve the Russia-threat image after the end of the Cold War. The anti-Russian lobby in America emerged in the early 20th century and got consolidated during the Cold War. During that time powerful elites with mutually exclusive visions were formed on both sides of the Atlantic.

The biggest headache is geographical: Crimea has no land border with Russia. The closest link is a windswept ferry crossing in the far north-eastern corner of Crimea that connects Kerch with the Russian mainland. A bridge will have to be built across the 4.5-kilometer wide Strait of Kerch to mother Russia but that's a multi-year project.

For Russia, the main terrain on which World War II was fought was Ukraine. Let us remember that 3.5 million soviet soldiers died liberating Ukraine, and they were not exclusively Ukrainians.

President Putin explains the history of Crimea and what Russia and Crimea have always meant for each other as follows:

The European Union and United States have agreed to impose sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian officials deemed responsible for a contested independence referendum in Crimea

EU BLACK LIST

1. Rewe:  The Rewe Supermarket Chain (under the name Billa) generates over 640 million euros of revenues each year from the Russian market. Russia represents the strongest foreign market for the chain.

Overall, Western diplomats failed to understand the existential importance of Ukraine to Russia. Specifically:

1. There was no formula offered for joint sovereignty over Crimea with the understanding that Russia would have a clear and unequivocal Russian sovereignty over Sevastopol.