Aleksei Martynov, a Russian political commentator, argued in an opinion piece for Izvestia that the EU was rattled by the Brexit referendum and was now using "all possible means" to hold the bloc together. "Emerging from the stupor of animal fear, the Euro-bureaucrats have cursed the very word 'referendum' and today are ready, having transcended their own rhetorical principles, to repressively defend the European Union in its current form through all possible means, but by the hands of national governments, today's events in Spanish Catalonia in any case mark the end of European political romanticism. Harsh, gray days lie ahead. Orwell lives."
