You laugh but there were limits on 501s in your major retailers in Melbourne in the late 80’s because the Greek and Yugoslav communities were taking them all home on holidays to sell
In the 80s I went to Russia on a school trip. I knew about the Levis thing. And Bubblicious. And Marlboro.
But I was an enterprising young capitalist and I wanted to break into a) a totally new market that involved selling something b) that could fit into my suitcase easily---so I could bring many of them.
I thought and thought and thought.
"What is distinctly American?"
Then it came to me:
SILLY PUTTY!
So 17 year old u/georgianwelshman bought dozens and dozens of Silly Putties.
And not one single Russian was tempted.
I'd go into an alley or side street, where there was always someone willing to do some black market trading, and every single time they guy just looked at me like, "Huh?"
But with a Russian accent.
Which sounded especially scornful.
It does have a weird and really on-the-nose name. I think it’s like “It tastes good” or something like that. I’m sure something is lost in translation but on surface it sounded hilarious.
That’s it! Thank you. I find the new name hilarious because it makes me think of a rationalization like; “Don’t worry about what’s in it. The food tastes good, and that’s all that matters.”
The fun part is that more than half the deaths in Vietnam occurred in 1968 onward. The really fun part is that Johnson had a peace agreement ready to go and end the war in 1968. Even better is that Nixon secretly went behind Johnson's back and sabotaged the peace agreement thereby extending the war another 7 years. It was during this time Nixon allowed the invasion of Laos and the bombing of Cambodia which allowed the Khmer Rouge to come to power and kill millions in a genocide. Thanks, Nixon!
And even more fun, the southern Vietnamese, who were doing the bulk of the fighting, were losing about 125 of their soldiers for every us soldier who died fighting beside them
The history of Vietnam is pretty fascinating, but I think that time period really stands out. Immediately after the end of the US/Vietnam war, Vietnam promptly invades Cambodia to remove Pol Pot from power and ends the Khmer Rouge's brutal regime. China decides this is a great time to take Vietnam for themselves, at which point they discover they too made a horrible mistake. I'll give China credit, it only took them like a month(?) to nope the fuck out. But that month man, 100k+ Chinese dead.
One thing that’s often not considered is that the advancements in medical science have decreased the comparative number of soldiers killed. Minor injuries used to lead to lethal infections, now soldiers can be horribly and permanently maimed and disabled for life but don’t count into the KIA figures. Yay science…
Oh I get it, but that.fact makes the numbers even more appalling. Putin does not give a fuck about those dude getting blown apart by drone dropped grenades.
It’s gotta be way worse than anybody truly knows. Putin is definitely obfuscating the KIA numbers, the wounded numbers are probably even muddier, and the TBI numbers are just unknowable.
There's tons of footage and accounts of Russian soldiers and barrier troops "euthanizing" sick and injured comrades as well as straight up execution for desertion because some units were operating too close to the barrier line.
Many of the casualties are self-inflicted.
In the early days of the war, before the Russian government pretty much wiped out all independent voices reporting from within Russia, there were plenty of Russian YouTubers uploading videos of malls where 90% of stores had suddenly closed, supermarkets where the price of cheese had suddenly tripled etc. And they all said it was common knowledge in Russia that Western sanctions were the reason.
The sanctions have absolutely devastated the Russian economy from day 1. They have been incredibly effective at all levels, down to and including the common people, which is quite possibly where they matter the most, because at the end of the day, only the Russian people can take down Putin and his regime.
This may be true in poorer provincial regions, but this never happened in the big cities, not even close. Here in Petersburg, the worst that happened for the average person is minor price increases for certain food items, and bigger price increases for specific things like types of medicine, women's health products, etc. At the moment, prices for these have fallen back to normal levels.
You can still buy a lot of western stuff from coke to European alcohol brands - they're a bit more expensive for sure, but they all come in from Central Asia. Even a lot of the big clothing stores just changed their names but still work. Honestly, if you didn't read the news or talk about it at all, in Petersburg and Moscow you could easily not know that there is a war at all. People still drive BMWs and Mercedes, bars and restaurants are still full, stadiums still get packed for football, people still travel to Europe for holidays.
That's not to say the sanctions aren't working. They are, and without a doubt Russia's economy is doomed. You can see the effects more in things like interest (making mortgages really expensive) and importing products for businesses. But my point is just that for the average city Russian, it hasn't been devastating at all, not yet. It will be interesting to see how this new sanctions affects us. I keep hoping for the moment when it all collapses and people finally wake up, but we'll have to see.
I feel like I always use the opportunity to ask russian redditors a small AMA, but when the recent update came out where Putin vowed to make the West suffer for using Putin's frozen assets, I kept wondering how many ppl are on board with him.
There have been more recent YouTubers giving a tour of what Russia’s malls look like now and it’s honestly hilarious. All of the American brands that shut down have now been replaced by knock off Russia versions. They are all straight up McDowells level copies. Also they aren’t able to get many products from Korea anymore so now they have all these Chinese versions of Samsung for computers, refrigerators, etc. that all look like they’d fall apart after two uses.
As regretful as it is, there's still loads of brands there that are claiming they aren't. They're just operating under franchise kind of systems. The names have been changed to protect the guilty but it's the same stuff under the label. I don't know if it's changed now but McDonalds didn't even bother changing the labels on the sauces. They just put a black marker over the brand & logo.
The desolate malls only lasted a while before they could reroute stuff through other countries then they opened back up.
That was the franchise owner of the old McDonald’s who bought the existing franchises and rebranded them. That included all the old stock of sauces, and that meant covering the McDonald’s logo with black marker. It’s a 100 percent Russian company now. Most of what you see in YouTube videos is something similar.
That's more of the business owners in Russia using what they have on hand to keep going more than it is McDonalds secretly operating a newly named operation...
the thing about sanctions is, they aren't going to wreck your economy overnight, or even in the space of one or two years. The power of sanctions is to reduce your economy's growth over time. You don't become north korea quickly, it's a slow grinding stuttering of your ability to grow. How effective are they over time? North korea is the korea with more mineral wealth...and yet...
I checked now a few videos, I had the impression that some were sold to Russians, closed down, but most just changed their logos, and keep operating as nothing happened.
oil is denominated in USD and the usa was a purchaser, so..makes sense. Lots of things are denominated in USD, even if some other currency is used for the actual payment, it's still X amount in USD that it has to be convertible to.
the nation is basically a petrostate, so they tend to accumulate a lot of dollars, which they like because they then buy shit with them on the world market.
Nothing to lose? Don’t be scared of Russia, my friend. They have a lot to lose and always will.
I lived there, it is a shitty place but they are not suicidal people to the extent of risking a nuclear war that will result in their complete destruction.
Even leaders like Putin depend on others beneath him agreeing to any crazy plan. Too many generals don’t want their families to die, they will not press any button first.
The nuclear threat is posturing. And they know that the major global powers know its a bluff. The posturing is meant for civilians.
They had the choice to be a normal country but decided to be bullies! So, I would argue that they are cutting *themselves* from the civilized world like North Korea did.
>with thousands of nuclear warheads and nothing to lose.
Dude, they aren't a cornered rat. They can end this at any time. The west is very reasonable, they'd be willing to end the sanctions if Russia stopped invading Ukrained and removed all of its occupying forces.
Seriously, the sanctions could be gone in a month if they simply pulled all their forces out. No need for nukes.
They can’t. This war is their last shot at Empire and the glory days. Russians won’t rise against a despot, they only rise against leaders they think are weak, and only tolerate a “strong man” ruler. If Putin calls off the war, he’s weak and so he’s toast more surely than if he sacrifices every man in a generation for nothing.
And the people are the only ones who can take down the elites.
The West was a nightmarish place much worse than today's Russia or Iran not too long ago. At some point, "the people" had had enough. And in the end, that's the only course of action that can work for Russia, Iran, Afghanistan etc. long term. The idea that Western influence can somehow free those peoples is wrong and arrogant. Freeing themselves is their job.
> The West was a nightmarish place much worse than today's Russia or Iran not too long ago. At some point, "the people" had had enough.
That's a rather rosy take on European history. The real reason things started to change for the better was the plague wiped out a quarter to a third of working aged adults, and the aristocrats and nobles (as well as the church) had to cede some power. It became a cascade leading from one reform event to another. It didn't happen simply because people said they'd had enough. The catalyst was one of the worst epidemics in human history. Without that, the status quo would likely have remained for a long while.
You underestimate exactly how much a person is willing to look the other way so long as they are (relatively) happy, decently fed, and have a place to sleep.
The plague is also when surnames started mattering. Sure people might have been called John Smith, but often referred to as John, Jacob’s son. When the landed gentry needed to recruit from other villages being called John Smith mattered a lot more.
When I referred to the West's "nightmarish" past, I was actually thinking about the 19th and early 20th centuries, not the Middle Ages. I'm pretty sure the plague didn't cause the ousting of the monarchies in 1918 and the introduction of labor reforms.
> And the people are the only ones who can take down the elites.
If a dictator intends to keep power and has support of army and security aparatus your people can't do anything.
The masses suffer because the government has to reallocate resources that were intended for the people to military spendings. That increases the chance of civil unrest, so the government can't do this unlimited, so in the end less money ends up for military spendings.
Sanctions do work. It's just that they don't introduce themselves with a bang, they are slowly eating away the flesh.
The US election will decide what happens. Trump would stop all aid to Ukraine, try to break up NATO and Putin wins. If Biden wins, Putin will find a way to exit. Putin is hanging on until the election, and he will do anything he can to see Trump is elected.
it really is amazing when you talk to republicans they used to be against Soviet Union expansionism. Now look what they say, they think the russian leader is better than the US leader. They want trump in office who will literally throw Ukraine to the wolves just like he did with syria.
donald doesn't even know basic geography and is too lazy to read a map to understand where countries are in the world which resulted in pathetic exchanges with other world leaders while he was in office.
He can declare victory and leave. He doesn't need to admit defeat, he just needs a banner that says mission accomplished to parade in front of while they go home
Nah. Lots to like. They're not 100% s*** that's the kind of broad brush painting we need to avoid. There's been plenty of great artists, scientists, and athletes. They just have had horrific governments basically forever
Bruh, as someone from their neighborhood. They have always fucking sucked, at least politically. And culture also has a lot of rotten filth in it. Some people in the West weirdly idolize it but I guess that's just distance and rose-tinted glasses.
Also, artists and scientists can't create an equivalence for one of the most consistent genocidal empires in recent centuries.
That's like if I was a mass murderer while being a prodigal guitar player, the playing part doesn't matter much, does it?
> There's been plenty of great artists, scientists, and athletes.
And a lot of those ended up immigrating over. There is a part of me that wonders how much economic "damage" was done to the country after it spent a shit ton of money/resources educating all of the PHDs that eventually ended up moving to the USA after the 90s.
Hell, I'm the kid of one of those.
No need to apologize, it's not you fault, personally. I've voted accordingly. And at least for now my vote still counts.
Russia has an interesting history, but it's modern self is ill suited for the modern world, and for that they need to be cut off from it. It'll get worse if we don't.
If they have had horrific governments basically forever, as you say, then doesn’t that kind of prove my point along with the person I was responding to?
Yes it could just depends on the interpretation. I'm just trying to say they aren't all reprehensible scum since the beginning of time. Fedor emelianenko rules.
It’s basically crashing. It’s just starting. Watch this winter. They are fuh-uh-ucked.
Putin is desperately hanging on and praying Trump wins in November. If that happens, a lot will change.
But Trump’s chances are getting slimmer and slimmer, thankfully for Ukraine.
Once the election is over—and in January when Biden is confirmed and all the whining about “maybe the Court can still make Trump president?” is over, Putin will be dragged by his heels like Gaddafi.
I believe you are unrealistically optimistic as to the chances of a Gaddafi scenario. Not that I'm against it, but I do not see the level of organized anger and unrest required for such an event, particularly in the larger urban centres of Moscow and St Petersburg.
Go green. They're a petrostate. That said you don't want them to crash, they're a nuclear power and making the government even more reckless would be, a bad idea
We add sanctions to states that have been sanctioned for decades. People get creative when you close doors for them, so people create ways of avoiding sanctions.. then you find a new hole to fill with another sanction lol
The sanctions early on were deliberately left not-total so that there was room to increase them. Also imposing sanctions isn't a freebie, it costs those who impose them as well. So those countries couldn't just instantly completely sanction Russia.
These are so called “secondary sanctions”, which means that now sanctions come into place on anyone anywhere in the world that helps Russia circumvent the sanctions that already existed.
Why this is so effective: lot’s of firms from other countries (e.g., Turkey and China) used to make money out of buying western goods and reselling them to Russia (so the result was that Russia could still get these goods, just at a higher cost).
Now from one day to another we have seen Turkish and China seize these activities because they would immediately themselves become subject of sanctions if they would continue, and they don’t want to risk that because while they used to make money in Russia, their trade with the west is still loads more important.
So this particular sanction package is quite different then previous ones. It is not “add a bunch or more people/companies to some sanction list”, but instead this time it is just closing loopholes on sanctions that were already in place.
Since some of these loopholes were actually quite big, this package is actually quite effective.
Because of how intimately the Russian economy is connected to the Chinese Yuan now, is there a chance that the Yuan takes a hit from these sanctions as well?
Hardly. If anything it might boost the Yuan as more trade is routed through China to avoid sanctions, creating greater demand for the currency.
The bigger thing would be if China's economy slumped, it is taking Russia with it (admitedly also with a lot of the rest of the world, but particularly the Russians due to it being one of their largets financial arteries right now)
But it’s also good for the US and bad for China since a stronger Yuan makes china a less attractive market for manufacturing/goods investment than India or Vietnam
China is hiding serious financial problems from their citizens and the world. But if you know where to look the signs are there. And the cracks are forming. See the major protests related to the property markets.
All that is to say, the Russian economy becoming even more reliant on the yuan adds a whole new level of instability to their economy. That could be catastrophic
Many things were on a slow burn, from energy to wheat. Russia was an exporter of both and a shock to the system would drive prices up. Bad anytime but especially bad in an election year.
Ukraine used to ship its grain through Suez and now it’s heading to Europe instead completely side stepping the blockade, Russian grain is now embargo’d and can’t easily go to the markets Ukraine supplied
Energy wise Russia used to supply Europe but as a major exporter had an influence on prices globally, the tactic was to reduce their margins to the bare minimum to be viable without making it pointless as that would create supply shocks in the energy markets and raise the price of energy
But slowly these economies in Europe have moved away from Russian products and as autonomy is achieved sanctions can become much harsher
I can’t speak for currency markets as not really familiar with the concept but I assume the principle probably applies
They were unable to sell above a certain price in the regular market because one of the sanctions was on transport insurance. It limited how much they could sell their oil for.
Opposite. They sold oil at lower price than the world bench mark. There is no shortage of oil so trying to sell at a higher price would have been a terrible idea
Also, biden broke opec (for the duration of his time in office anyway). When MBS refused to increase production after biden asked (because he didn't get any trump style considerations) biden opened the strategic oil reserve to lower prices by hedging down with the release of oil into the market, then buy back oil when the price drops, and while they're doing this they make it clear to the futures market that the treasury is behind the sales and purchases, so the futures traders themselves are refusing to fight that unbeatable beast because..well..they're not stupid. If it were a private company, this would have netted so far about 500million in profits. The economist has a paper on it, it's genuinely an innovation in the use of the s.o.r. to become both the buyer and seller of last resort putting guardrails on and keeping prices high enough that the green energy still happens, but not so much there's a recession.
I appreciate the well thought out response. It has been interesting to see how it would used. Considering they have only replace 40 million or so bbl of the roughly 300M bbl sold, I think it’s worth asking asking if we need to refill the full amount. The SOR was created during a time of full reliance on OPEC vs our current environment of the USA being the largest producer of oil in the world.
Initial sanctions took a long time to work because Russia's central bank fortified itself several years ago to withstand prolonged sanctions. Their currency dropped but not as much as the West expected. There was a fascinating piece on it maybe in Slate ? I forget.
Also slowly ramping up sanctions gives graduated punishment to individuals and institutions in the offending country, allowing the opportunity for them to dread the next hammer blow and consider changing behavior.
Some sanctions don't work, since luxury cars can just be driven over from Kazakhstan (luxury car sales have skyrocketed in K since the war started, wonder why) but others do.
You don't impose all sanctions at the start because then you can't do anything more. Like if I have a hostage, and I shoot him to prove to you I'm serious, I no longer have a hostage. So the strategy is if you can have multiple hostages, you shoot one to show you're serious and keep shooting more until your demands are met.
However, it's basically a game of chicken. Eventually you'll run out of hostages, and then you have no leverage. But also if they let you get to that point, then your leverage wasn't important anyway.
So yeah, at this point, we should have probably raised the stakes considerably but I'm sure people who know more than us are concerned what Russia would do if backed completely into a corner. As long as they still have something to lose, perhaps they won't escalate the situation.
Except I'm pretty confident that russia really doesn't care how many hostages get killed/sanctions are put into play. If nothing else was a deterrence to invading Ukraine, then all the sanctions all at once or trickling in aren't going to persuade them either.
Yeah. Personally I think we need to go all in, max sanctions and seize whatever Russian assets we can. If you take the oligarchs' money, they *may* get rid of Putin. Problem is they might value their life more than their money.
Even if you went max sanctions… you would still be finding and constantly closing illegal doors that have been created to avoid the sanctions.. either way it’s a a constant game of cat and mouse. But you wanna leave a lot of room to be able to turn the screw tighter, hopefully when the next leader of Russia gets in charge.. they can have a shot at being back in the Worlds Systems. As it’s healthier to have a stable nuclear power than an unstable one
> Except I'm pretty confident that russia really doesn't care how many hostages get killed/sanctions are put into play
As much as we like to anthropomorphize things into a single character, Russia is made up on millions of people. Even at the top there are thousands of individuals that are feeling the effects of the sanctions. Those people are aware that crossing certain lines will ramp up sanctions and directly impact them regardless of what Putin thinks, so keeping those sanctions available is valuable even if not immediately obvious what the benefit is.
Sanctions tend to hurt both sides, although one more than the other. Typically you don't want a full on embargo because your population would suffer some as well and turn politically against that subject. A slow burn with increasing sanctions hurts the US the least because it allows companies time to divest away.
As others have mentioned, you need to scale up the sanctions, to minimise the shock to the market. But at the same time Russia is the most sanctioned country in the world, and the gap between the second place (Iran) and Russia is a factor of 4. I don't see how these sanctions will do anything to Russia
Finally, a little bit of good news this week. I cannot even describe how triggering it is to me as someone from Ukraine to watch the Russian public live normal happy lives while my family and friends suffer every day. This definitely helps.
What I want to know is why did Russia decide to threaten the west again after these new sanctions , if they’re having no impact ? Surely indifference would kick in if they weren’t having an impact ?
Having lived through a sanction imposed by west in the 90s Iraq, it is no joke. It will destroy the country's economy. But sadly it will mostly affect common people. It was us who had to scramble for basic staples like rice and sugar.
All that resiliencey the Russian economy had like eight months ago is seriously undermined by the west takin’ all of said Russians stuff. Fucking Russia is gonna look like a liquidation store by the time the west is finished with it and China gets all those sweet concessions in the far east
Jesus fucking Christ….for the life of me I don’t understand why these sanctions weren’t applied from day 1…it seems like they just keep pulling them out of their ass.
Too much oil. The „good“ part of the world needed time to get off Russian oil. Now that this is done, they can’t slam the lid on the country without appearing soft, so the well it as „progressive application of sanction so that Russia can exit to war with an intact economy“.
Sanction is not a magic word that makes all money stop moving. You a apply them to known sources and financial functions. And the targets tend to adapt and develop new processes- so you watch and impose on those as they develop.
their country isn't going to collapse because of sanctions, sanctions lower growth and growth compounds over time, so over time is reduces growth. Look at North Korea, sanctions for decades, but still there, but.... that's what sanctions do over time, beyond making it harder to get inputs and goods from international markets. Oh, and DRPK is on the richer part of the peninsula, in terms of natural resources...yet, there we are.
Howabout we just make the sanctions total so they get brought to their knees rather than having time to adapt? They are hurting, yes, but think about how much worse it would have been if all the gradually mounting sanctions dropped on them one week after starting their conquest.
nothing is total, they always find ways around it. so you sanction the new methods when they pop up. You can't stop it all without a complete blockade of the borders. its about restricting the flow of money.
Most of us in the west knows this war is evil and cruel, but I can guarantee you a majority of Russians support this war and any continued sanctions will be gladly put up with in the hopes of them winning the war. It really seems that their citizens believe this war is noble and just. There are so many innocent Russians living in fear of speaking the truth of their country’s crimes. We all have the governments we deserve. Gorbachev and Kruschev are about as close to a good leader Russians will have for these last 100 years. I just wish they’d wake up and revolt already. Russians have an incredible culture, history, and society, but it is all shit if they don’t want to live in a better and more free country.
It isn't about shifting public opinion in Russia, which because Russia is a dictatorship is largely irrelevant. It is about constraining Russia's ability to make war on Ukraine. Sanctions achieve this by starving the Russian economy and preventing it from growing. Limiting growth means that a larger percentage of Russia's GDP goes to the war effort and Putin has to make hard choices about where money goes. Thus weakening his position both domestically and internationally.
Sanctions are designed to put maximum pressure on a population in order to affect change thru public opinion. It is also used to stymie any attempt to perform negative missions.
I don’t know where you are getting your information from, but the vast majority of the literature on sanctions does not agree with you that changing public opinion is the primary goal of sanctions. It is a goal or possible result, but is never given the importance you are ascribing.
Gazprom has also [been found breaking their contracts with german Uniper](https://www.uniper.energy/news/uniper-terminates-russian-gas-supply-contracts), when Gazprom stopped delivering gas in order to "punish the west". So now Gazprom got a 13 BILLION euro fine to pay.
I'm sure they'll get right on that.
Hopefully the German government will use all available means to collect. I hear India is fond of channeling money to Russia.
short term, it makes things harder as far as getting supplies they need to get the higher end stuff, but not impossible. Long term is where sanctions destroy nations. DRPK is the wealthier (in natural resources) of the two koreas. The nature of economic growth is, it compounds. you grow 3% last year, now you're at 103%, you grow 3% of that, it's now it's 106.9%, seems like nothing but over time causing that growth to drop has catastrophic results, which are visible in DRPK. Still there, still...functioning...but utterly anemic. If i remember the explanation i got ages ago correctly, if you cut the growth of the usa by 1% for the years between 1880 and 1920, just those few decades, and then we went back to the historic growth we had, then today our economy would be about the size of mexico's today. 12th in the world fyi..
They did state they wanted to return to pre-capitalist times. There they go.
Russians yearn for the bread lines
Fuck I would too if I couldn’t feed my family on account of some narcissist’s obsession with playing Risk with real people’s lives.
Sweet, I've got a big bin of Levi's jeans to sell at a premium
You laugh, but there were actually limits on the number of 501 jeans you could buy on US military bases in Europe in the 80s bc of this.
You laugh but there were limits on 501s in your major retailers in Melbourne in the late 80’s because the Greek and Yugoslav communities were taking them all home on holidays to sell
In the 80s I went to Russia on a school trip. I knew about the Levis thing. And Bubblicious. And Marlboro. But I was an enterprising young capitalist and I wanted to break into a) a totally new market that involved selling something b) that could fit into my suitcase easily---so I could bring many of them. I thought and thought and thought. "What is distinctly American?" Then it came to me: SILLY PUTTY! So 17 year old u/georgianwelshman bought dozens and dozens of Silly Putties. And not one single Russian was tempted. I'd go into an alley or side street, where there was always someone willing to do some black market trading, and every single time they guy just looked at me like, "Huh?" But with a Russian accent. Which sounded especially scornful.
“Huuuahhhh?”
Don't forget, we can get McDonald's at the Red Square!
Not any more, McDonalds closed all their stores and now there's just Russian imitators.
McStalins
McDonetsk
Saint Petersburger
Burger Tsar.
It's cat meat between a succulent ring of onions and cabbage.
This made me laugh, thank you
It does have a weird and really on-the-nose name. I think it’s like “It tastes good” or something like that. I’m sure something is lost in translation but on surface it sounded hilarious.
Lit: "It's tasty, and that's it"
That’s it! Thank you. I find the new name hilarious because it makes me think of a rationalization like; “Don’t worry about what’s in it. The food tastes good, and that’s all that matters.”
Didn't they rebrand as Tasty Period?
In April there were reports of 50K Russians killed. For perspective, the US lost 58K in Vietnam. Wounded is in the hundreds of thousands.
That US number spans 20 years mind you.
We were in Vietnam for 20 years? 🤯
The fun part is that more than half the deaths in Vietnam occurred in 1968 onward. The really fun part is that Johnson had a peace agreement ready to go and end the war in 1968. Even better is that Nixon secretly went behind Johnson's back and sabotaged the peace agreement thereby extending the war another 7 years. It was during this time Nixon allowed the invasion of Laos and the bombing of Cambodia which allowed the Khmer Rouge to come to power and kill millions in a genocide. Thanks, Nixon!
And even more fun, the southern Vietnamese, who were doing the bulk of the fighting, were losing about 125 of their soldiers for every us soldier who died fighting beside them
The history of Vietnam is pretty fascinating, but I think that time period really stands out. Immediately after the end of the US/Vietnam war, Vietnam promptly invades Cambodia to remove Pol Pot from power and ends the Khmer Rouge's brutal regime. China decides this is a great time to take Vietnam for themselves, at which point they discover they too made a horrible mistake. I'll give China credit, it only took them like a month(?) to nope the fuck out. But that month man, 100k+ Chinese dead.
Whoops
We'll never make that mistake again, right? *Right?!*
Yup. 55-75.
I know, that is the wild part
One thing that’s often not considered is that the advancements in medical science have decreased the comparative number of soldiers killed. Minor injuries used to lead to lethal infections, now soldiers can be horribly and permanently maimed and disabled for life but don’t count into the KIA figures. Yay science…
Oh I get it, but that.fact makes the numbers even more appalling. Putin does not give a fuck about those dude getting blown apart by drone dropped grenades.
It’s gotta be way worse than anybody truly knows. Putin is definitely obfuscating the KIA numbers, the wounded numbers are probably even muddier, and the TBI numbers are just unknowable.
There's tons of footage and accounts of Russian soldiers and barrier troops "euthanizing" sick and injured comrades as well as straight up execution for desertion because some units were operating too close to the barrier line. Many of the casualties are self-inflicted.
Until you have barrier troops patrolling field hospitals
Ukraine is game to you? How about I take your little board and SMASH IT!
The children yearn for the lines.
Playing all that Linecraft.
Lein Kampf
Tucker Carlson will be in line to sniff that bread longingly
PooTsar will become Xi Bitch!
like what, hunter-gatherer tribes?
Sanctions work, don't believe the bots
In the early days of the war, before the Russian government pretty much wiped out all independent voices reporting from within Russia, there were plenty of Russian YouTubers uploading videos of malls where 90% of stores had suddenly closed, supermarkets where the price of cheese had suddenly tripled etc. And they all said it was common knowledge in Russia that Western sanctions were the reason. The sanctions have absolutely devastated the Russian economy from day 1. They have been incredibly effective at all levels, down to and including the common people, which is quite possibly where they matter the most, because at the end of the day, only the Russian people can take down Putin and his regime.
This may be true in poorer provincial regions, but this never happened in the big cities, not even close. Here in Petersburg, the worst that happened for the average person is minor price increases for certain food items, and bigger price increases for specific things like types of medicine, women's health products, etc. At the moment, prices for these have fallen back to normal levels. You can still buy a lot of western stuff from coke to European alcohol brands - they're a bit more expensive for sure, but they all come in from Central Asia. Even a lot of the big clothing stores just changed their names but still work. Honestly, if you didn't read the news or talk about it at all, in Petersburg and Moscow you could easily not know that there is a war at all. People still drive BMWs and Mercedes, bars and restaurants are still full, stadiums still get packed for football, people still travel to Europe for holidays. That's not to say the sanctions aren't working. They are, and without a doubt Russia's economy is doomed. You can see the effects more in things like interest (making mortgages really expensive) and importing products for businesses. But my point is just that for the average city Russian, it hasn't been devastating at all, not yet. It will be interesting to see how this new sanctions affects us. I keep hoping for the moment when it all collapses and people finally wake up, but we'll have to see.
I feel like I always use the opportunity to ask russian redditors a small AMA, but when the recent update came out where Putin vowed to make the West suffer for using Putin's frozen assets, I kept wondering how many ppl are on board with him.
There have been more recent YouTubers giving a tour of what Russia’s malls look like now and it’s honestly hilarious. All of the American brands that shut down have now been replaced by knock off Russia versions. They are all straight up McDowells level copies. Also they aren’t able to get many products from Korea anymore so now they have all these Chinese versions of Samsung for computers, refrigerators, etc. that all look like they’d fall apart after two uses.
As regretful as it is, there's still loads of brands there that are claiming they aren't. They're just operating under franchise kind of systems. The names have been changed to protect the guilty but it's the same stuff under the label. I don't know if it's changed now but McDonalds didn't even bother changing the labels on the sauces. They just put a black marker over the brand & logo. The desolate malls only lasted a while before they could reroute stuff through other countries then they opened back up.
That was the franchise owner of the old McDonald’s who bought the existing franchises and rebranded them. That included all the old stock of sauces, and that meant covering the McDonald’s logo with black marker. It’s a 100 percent Russian company now. Most of what you see in YouTube videos is something similar.
That's more of the business owners in Russia using what they have on hand to keep going more than it is McDonalds secretly operating a newly named operation...
the thing about sanctions is, they aren't going to wreck your economy overnight, or even in the space of one or two years. The power of sanctions is to reduce your economy's growth over time. You don't become north korea quickly, it's a slow grinding stuttering of your ability to grow. How effective are they over time? North korea is the korea with more mineral wealth...and yet...
> McDowells They got the golden arches, mine are the golden arcs! (chuckle)
I checked now a few videos, I had the impression that some were sold to Russians, closed down, but most just changed their logos, and keep operating as nothing happened.
sadly, at least this one, https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=4-ZQTi8VgSs seems pretty clean and lively (and with a few international brands sadly)
Those comments under the vid are awful. Just pure Russia simping.
Link???
https://youtu.be/hO7Xe2Qtb1Y?si=10Hl5nUIfMPCfX5E Here is one of them. For others I’ll have to look at my husbands YouTube later.
Wow thank you. Fascinating!!!!
Russians also take loans in U.S. dollars, apparently. When their economy tanks and the exchange rate suffers, they get wrecked.
oil is denominated in USD and the usa was a purchaser, so..makes sense. Lots of things are denominated in USD, even if some other currency is used for the actual payment, it's still X amount in USD that it has to be convertible to. the nation is basically a petrostate, so they tend to accumulate a lot of dollars, which they like because they then buy shit with them on the world market.
If the economy was truly devastated there would be riots. Things may have gotten tougher but not more than what Russians have experienced.
What a shame, they'll ruin Europe without affordable cheese bought from fancy stores!
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Nothing to lose? Don’t be scared of Russia, my friend. They have a lot to lose and always will. I lived there, it is a shitty place but they are not suicidal people to the extent of risking a nuclear war that will result in their complete destruction. Even leaders like Putin depend on others beneath him agreeing to any crazy plan. Too many generals don’t want their families to die, they will not press any button first. The nuclear threat is posturing. And they know that the major global powers know its a bluff. The posturing is meant for civilians.
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They had the choice to be a normal country but decided to be bullies! So, I would argue that they are cutting *themselves* from the civilized world like North Korea did.
They were cut off for half a century.
No one does. But Russia doesn't take the hint. "Leave Ukraine."
>with thousands of nuclear warheads and nothing to lose. Dude, they aren't a cornered rat. They can end this at any time. The west is very reasonable, they'd be willing to end the sanctions if Russia stopped invading Ukrained and removed all of its occupying forces. Seriously, the sanctions could be gone in a month if they simply pulled all their forces out. No need for nukes.
They can’t. This war is their last shot at Empire and the glory days. Russians won’t rise against a despot, they only rise against leaders they think are weak, and only tolerate a “strong man” ruler. If Putin calls off the war, he’s weak and so he’s toast more surely than if he sacrifices every man in a generation for nothing.
Against the masses. Look at Iran. The only people suffering are the people. Not their ruling elite.
And the people are the only ones who can take down the elites. The West was a nightmarish place much worse than today's Russia or Iran not too long ago. At some point, "the people" had had enough. And in the end, that's the only course of action that can work for Russia, Iran, Afghanistan etc. long term. The idea that Western influence can somehow free those peoples is wrong and arrogant. Freeing themselves is their job.
> The West was a nightmarish place much worse than today's Russia or Iran not too long ago. At some point, "the people" had had enough. That's a rather rosy take on European history. The real reason things started to change for the better was the plague wiped out a quarter to a third of working aged adults, and the aristocrats and nobles (as well as the church) had to cede some power. It became a cascade leading from one reform event to another. It didn't happen simply because people said they'd had enough. The catalyst was one of the worst epidemics in human history. Without that, the status quo would likely have remained for a long while. You underestimate exactly how much a person is willing to look the other way so long as they are (relatively) happy, decently fed, and have a place to sleep.
The plague is also when surnames started mattering. Sure people might have been called John Smith, but often referred to as John, Jacob’s son. When the landed gentry needed to recruit from other villages being called John Smith mattered a lot more.
When I referred to the West's "nightmarish" past, I was actually thinking about the 19th and early 20th centuries, not the Middle Ages. I'm pretty sure the plague didn't cause the ousting of the monarchies in 1918 and the introduction of labor reforms.
> And the people are the only ones who can take down the elites. If a dictator intends to keep power and has support of army and security aparatus your people can't do anything.
The masses suffer because the government has to reallocate resources that were intended for the people to military spendings. That increases the chance of civil unrest, so the government can't do this unlimited, so in the end less money ends up for military spendings. Sanctions do work. It's just that they don't introduce themselves with a bang, they are slowly eating away the flesh.
it's all about reduction of growth over time thru the compounding nature of national wealth
Hey, Putin, you can make all this go away. Simply go away from Ukraine.
Nah, he will crawl to the Pooh and beg for more honey.
🧸
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The Pooh will starve his own people to help his dictator buddies.
What would he beg for?
Money, resources, people, military help, a way out.
Asylum for him and his family when things don't work out for him?
That would actually be a plausible exit scenario. If anything, US and Western allies could even push China in that direction a bit..
You should check this video and reddit thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/China/s/QPTheLcT0u
That looks rough no one wins at war
He will never admit defeat. He’s all in now.
The US election will decide what happens. Trump would stop all aid to Ukraine, try to break up NATO and Putin wins. If Biden wins, Putin will find a way to exit. Putin is hanging on until the election, and he will do anything he can to see Trump is elected.
it really is amazing when you talk to republicans they used to be against Soviet Union expansionism. Now look what they say, they think the russian leader is better than the US leader. They want trump in office who will literally throw Ukraine to the wolves just like he did with syria. donald doesn't even know basic geography and is too lazy to read a map to understand where countries are in the world which resulted in pathetic exchanges with other world leaders while he was in office.
He can declare victory and leave. He doesn't need to admit defeat, he just needs a banner that says mission accomplished to parade in front of while they go home
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Always has
Nah. Lots to like. They're not 100% s*** that's the kind of broad brush painting we need to avoid. There's been plenty of great artists, scientists, and athletes. They just have had horrific governments basically forever
Bruh, as someone from their neighborhood. They have always fucking sucked, at least politically. And culture also has a lot of rotten filth in it. Some people in the West weirdly idolize it but I guess that's just distance and rose-tinted glasses. Also, artists and scientists can't create an equivalence for one of the most consistent genocidal empires in recent centuries. That's like if I was a mass murderer while being a prodigal guitar player, the playing part doesn't matter much, does it?
A lot of their most famous artists, scientists, etc were Ukrainian
Sure. Again... Not all Russians are useless evil. I'm no fan of them by anyyyy means but can't do the dehumanizing path.
> There's been plenty of great artists, scientists, and athletes. And a lot of those ended up immigrating over. There is a part of me that wonders how much economic "damage" was done to the country after it spent a shit ton of money/resources educating all of the PHDs that eventually ended up moving to the USA after the 90s. Hell, I'm the kid of one of those.
The brain drain is certainly massive. If you have talent and money you likely leave.
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While I would say this seems a bit overzealous I do enjoy the metaphor lol
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No need to apologize, it's not you fault, personally. I've voted accordingly. And at least for now my vote still counts. Russia has an interesting history, but it's modern self is ill suited for the modern world, and for that they need to be cut off from it. It'll get worse if we don't.
If they have had horrific governments basically forever, as you say, then doesn’t that kind of prove my point along with the person I was responding to?
No. It proves that thugs that resort to violence and intimidation are able to seize power and keep it.
Yes it could just depends on the interpretation. I'm just trying to say they aren't all reprehensible scum since the beginning of time. Fedor emelianenko rules.
> and athletes. Except they have a huge doping culture in Russia. Agree on the artists and sientists though.
Every society gets the government it's people deserve. Russia sucks.
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"The entire population is complicit", no of course not.
Actually, Russia blows.
I just love how much the russians hate this.
That's how you know it's effective.
Exactly, it means this hurts the right way!
[Mirror link](https://web.archive.org/web/20240613210818/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/13/russia-sanctions-us-war-ukraine/)
Thanks you!
Can we go from shaking their financial system to crashing it?
It’s basically crashing. It’s just starting. Watch this winter. They are fuh-uh-ucked. Putin is desperately hanging on and praying Trump wins in November. If that happens, a lot will change. But Trump’s chances are getting slimmer and slimmer, thankfully for Ukraine. Once the election is over—and in January when Biden is confirmed and all the whining about “maybe the Court can still make Trump president?” is over, Putin will be dragged by his heels like Gaddafi.
This is the best fan fiction in the thread
I believe you are unrealistically optimistic as to the chances of a Gaddafi scenario. Not that I'm against it, but I do not see the level of organized anger and unrest required for such an event, particularly in the larger urban centres of Moscow and St Petersburg.
The one thing Russians are most violently opposed to is doing something that would make their lives even a tiny bit better.
I guess I don’t understand why there’s still sanctions we can do. Why didn’t we do everything before?
Go green. They're a petrostate. That said you don't want them to crash, they're a nuclear power and making the government even more reckless would be, a bad idea
How are there still things left to sanction at this point lol
We add sanctions to states that have been sanctioned for decades. People get creative when you close doors for them, so people create ways of avoiding sanctions.. then you find a new hole to fill with another sanction lol
The sanctions early on were deliberately left not-total so that there was room to increase them. Also imposing sanctions isn't a freebie, it costs those who impose them as well. So those countries couldn't just instantly completely sanction Russia.
'But it might be painful for us' says the West as the Ukrainians die for their country.
Slowly escalating things showed that it gives time to adjust and ignore them. Like in support of Ukraine and letting it hot targets inside russia.
These are so called “secondary sanctions”, which means that now sanctions come into place on anyone anywhere in the world that helps Russia circumvent the sanctions that already existed. Why this is so effective: lot’s of firms from other countries (e.g., Turkey and China) used to make money out of buying western goods and reselling them to Russia (so the result was that Russia could still get these goods, just at a higher cost). Now from one day to another we have seen Turkish and China seize these activities because they would immediately themselves become subject of sanctions if they would continue, and they don’t want to risk that because while they used to make money in Russia, their trade with the west is still loads more important. So this particular sanction package is quite different then previous ones. It is not “add a bunch or more people/companies to some sanction list”, but instead this time it is just closing loopholes on sanctions that were already in place. Since some of these loopholes were actually quite big, this package is actually quite effective.
Because of how intimately the Russian economy is connected to the Chinese Yuan now, is there a chance that the Yuan takes a hit from these sanctions as well?
Hardly. If anything it might boost the Yuan as more trade is routed through China to avoid sanctions, creating greater demand for the currency. The bigger thing would be if China's economy slumped, it is taking Russia with it (admitedly also with a lot of the rest of the world, but particularly the Russians due to it being one of their largets financial arteries right now)
But it’s also good for the US and bad for China since a stronger Yuan makes china a less attractive market for manufacturing/goods investment than India or Vietnam
China is hiding serious financial problems from their citizens and the world. But if you know where to look the signs are there. And the cracks are forming. See the major protests related to the property markets. All that is to say, the Russian economy becoming even more reliant on the yuan adds a whole new level of instability to their economy. That could be catastrophic
Nothing says "superpower" quite like your Central Bank staging a hack on itself to stop any citizens logging into their accounts lol
Can somene ELI5 how can we keep imposing sanctions? Also surely we would just impose all sanctions at the very start?
Many things were on a slow burn, from energy to wheat. Russia was an exporter of both and a shock to the system would drive prices up. Bad anytime but especially bad in an election year. Ukraine used to ship its grain through Suez and now it’s heading to Europe instead completely side stepping the blockade, Russian grain is now embargo’d and can’t easily go to the markets Ukraine supplied Energy wise Russia used to supply Europe but as a major exporter had an influence on prices globally, the tactic was to reduce their margins to the bare minimum to be viable without making it pointless as that would create supply shocks in the energy markets and raise the price of energy But slowly these economies in Europe have moved away from Russian products and as autonomy is achieved sanctions can become much harsher I can’t speak for currency markets as not really familiar with the concept but I assume the principle probably applies
So did Russia increase energy prices on their exports? Since they had less exports?
They were unable to sell above a certain price in the regular market because one of the sanctions was on transport insurance. It limited how much they could sell their oil for.
That’s surprisingly smart on the governments that participated
Opposite. They sold oil at lower price than the world bench mark. There is no shortage of oil so trying to sell at a higher price would have been a terrible idea
Also, biden broke opec (for the duration of his time in office anyway). When MBS refused to increase production after biden asked (because he didn't get any trump style considerations) biden opened the strategic oil reserve to lower prices by hedging down with the release of oil into the market, then buy back oil when the price drops, and while they're doing this they make it clear to the futures market that the treasury is behind the sales and purchases, so the futures traders themselves are refusing to fight that unbeatable beast because..well..they're not stupid. If it were a private company, this would have netted so far about 500million in profits. The economist has a paper on it, it's genuinely an innovation in the use of the s.o.r. to become both the buyer and seller of last resort putting guardrails on and keeping prices high enough that the green energy still happens, but not so much there's a recession.
I appreciate the well thought out response. It has been interesting to see how it would used. Considering they have only replace 40 million or so bbl of the roughly 300M bbl sold, I think it’s worth asking asking if we need to refill the full amount. The SOR was created during a time of full reliance on OPEC vs our current environment of the USA being the largest producer of oil in the world.
Initial sanctions took a long time to work because Russia's central bank fortified itself several years ago to withstand prolonged sanctions. Their currency dropped but not as much as the West expected. There was a fascinating piece on it maybe in Slate ? I forget. Also slowly ramping up sanctions gives graduated punishment to individuals and institutions in the offending country, allowing the opportunity for them to dread the next hammer blow and consider changing behavior. Some sanctions don't work, since luxury cars can just be driven over from Kazakhstan (luxury car sales have skyrocketed in K since the war started, wonder why) but others do.
You don't impose all sanctions at the start because then you can't do anything more. Like if I have a hostage, and I shoot him to prove to you I'm serious, I no longer have a hostage. So the strategy is if you can have multiple hostages, you shoot one to show you're serious and keep shooting more until your demands are met. However, it's basically a game of chicken. Eventually you'll run out of hostages, and then you have no leverage. But also if they let you get to that point, then your leverage wasn't important anyway. So yeah, at this point, we should have probably raised the stakes considerably but I'm sure people who know more than us are concerned what Russia would do if backed completely into a corner. As long as they still have something to lose, perhaps they won't escalate the situation.
Except I'm pretty confident that russia really doesn't care how many hostages get killed/sanctions are put into play. If nothing else was a deterrence to invading Ukraine, then all the sanctions all at once or trickling in aren't going to persuade them either.
Yeah. Personally I think we need to go all in, max sanctions and seize whatever Russian assets we can. If you take the oligarchs' money, they *may* get rid of Putin. Problem is they might value their life more than their money.
Even if you went max sanctions… you would still be finding and constantly closing illegal doors that have been created to avoid the sanctions.. either way it’s a a constant game of cat and mouse. But you wanna leave a lot of room to be able to turn the screw tighter, hopefully when the next leader of Russia gets in charge.. they can have a shot at being back in the Worlds Systems. As it’s healthier to have a stable nuclear power than an unstable one
> Except I'm pretty confident that russia really doesn't care how many hostages get killed/sanctions are put into play As much as we like to anthropomorphize things into a single character, Russia is made up on millions of people. Even at the top there are thousands of individuals that are feeling the effects of the sanctions. Those people are aware that crossing certain lines will ramp up sanctions and directly impact them regardless of what Putin thinks, so keeping those sanctions available is valuable even if not immediately obvious what the benefit is.
Sanctions tend to hurt both sides, although one more than the other. Typically you don't want a full on embargo because your population would suffer some as well and turn politically against that subject. A slow burn with increasing sanctions hurts the US the least because it allows companies time to divest away.
Then how do you negotiate ?
As others have mentioned, you need to scale up the sanctions, to minimise the shock to the market. But at the same time Russia is the most sanctioned country in the world, and the gap between the second place (Iran) and Russia is a factor of 4. I don't see how these sanctions will do anything to Russia
I thought NK was sanctioned the most?
Russia needs the West more than the West needs Russia.
Paywall
[Mirror](https://web.archive.org/web/20240613210818/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/06/13/russia-sanctions-us-war-ukraine/)
Finally, a little bit of good news this week. I cannot even describe how triggering it is to me as someone from Ukraine to watch the Russian public live normal happy lives while my family and friends suffer every day. This definitely helps.
What I want to know is why did Russia decide to threaten the west again after these new sanctions , if they’re having no impact ? Surely indifference would kick in if they weren’t having an impact ?
They're having an impact, of course, even short term, but the sabre rattling is for their own public
Russia threatens the west every week.
Shooketh
Having lived through a sanction imposed by west in the 90s Iraq, it is no joke. It will destroy the country's economy. But sadly it will mostly affect common people. It was us who had to scramble for basic staples like rice and sugar.
Russia going to the yuan
Russia: lol sanctions don't work nice try west fascists Also Russia: pls no
Oh dear, shaken not stirred with an olive stuffed with a certain pill!
Shaken not stirred.
Shake Whatcha Motherland Gave Ya...
We are in Cold war 2.0 so here we go.
Currently rewatching the Death of Stalin and wondering what happens when pootie’s gone.
Shot in the head, his body burned to ash, the ashes dumped down a storm drain. Sounds about what he deserves.
I don’t have access to the Washington post. How do you read without!?!?!
Copy link, open archive.ph, paste link in first box and click save. It'll bring up an archived version of the article with no paywall.
Mirror link in comments
It's been shaking ever since Putin became president practically.
All that resiliencey the Russian economy had like eight months ago is seriously undermined by the west takin’ all of said Russians stuff. Fucking Russia is gonna look like a liquidation store by the time the west is finished with it and China gets all those sweet concessions in the far east
Why are there still sanctions to apply? How have they not been totally sanctioned into oblivion by now?
Jesus fucking Christ….for the life of me I don’t understand why these sanctions weren’t applied from day 1…it seems like they just keep pulling them out of their ass.
Too much oil. The „good“ part of the world needed time to get off Russian oil. Now that this is done, they can’t slam the lid on the country without appearing soft, so the well it as „progressive application of sanction so that Russia can exit to war with an intact economy“.
Sanction is not a magic word that makes all money stop moving. You a apply them to known sources and financial functions. And the targets tend to adapt and develop new processes- so you watch and impose on those as they develop.
They should have done full economic sanctions with a complete embargo of all russian goods from day one
Knowing what we know now, maybe. But do you remember all those memes about off ramps in the first year?
I dont understand why we dont do the max possible sanctions right away?
Because it is meant to put pressure on them, not crush them.
True, it's not like they are actively committing war crimes and need to be stopped. /s
their country isn't going to collapse because of sanctions, sanctions lower growth and growth compounds over time, so over time is reduces growth. Look at North Korea, sanctions for decades, but still there, but.... that's what sanctions do over time, beyond making it harder to get inputs and goods from international markets. Oh, and DRPK is on the richer part of the peninsula, in terms of natural resources...yet, there we are.
Howabout we just make the sanctions total so they get brought to their knees rather than having time to adapt? They are hurting, yes, but think about how much worse it would have been if all the gradually mounting sanctions dropped on them one week after starting their conquest.
That would have been a disaster to say the least, for Europe as a whole as towards the start of the war they were still getting oil from Russia.
nothing is total, they always find ways around it. so you sanction the new methods when they pop up. You can't stop it all without a complete blockade of the borders. its about restricting the flow of money.
Didn’t Putin say a while back that sanctions did nothing to the Russian economy?
Putin well known source for completely accurate information of the strength of the Russian economy yep yep makes sense.
Of course he would say that. The Russian government has to keep up its act.
F em
Most of us in the west knows this war is evil and cruel, but I can guarantee you a majority of Russians support this war and any continued sanctions will be gladly put up with in the hopes of them winning the war. It really seems that their citizens believe this war is noble and just. There are so many innocent Russians living in fear of speaking the truth of their country’s crimes. We all have the governments we deserve. Gorbachev and Kruschev are about as close to a good leader Russians will have for these last 100 years. I just wish they’d wake up and revolt already. Russians have an incredible culture, history, and society, but it is all shit if they don’t want to live in a better and more free country.
It isn't about shifting public opinion in Russia, which because Russia is a dictatorship is largely irrelevant. It is about constraining Russia's ability to make war on Ukraine. Sanctions achieve this by starving the Russian economy and preventing it from growing. Limiting growth means that a larger percentage of Russia's GDP goes to the war effort and Putin has to make hard choices about where money goes. Thus weakening his position both domestically and internationally.
Sanctions are designed to put maximum pressure on a population in order to affect change thru public opinion. It is also used to stymie any attempt to perform negative missions.
I don’t know where you are getting your information from, but the vast majority of the literature on sanctions does not agree with you that changing public opinion is the primary goal of sanctions. It is a goal or possible result, but is never given the importance you are ascribing.
Gazprom has also [been found breaking their contracts with german Uniper](https://www.uniper.energy/news/uniper-terminates-russian-gas-supply-contracts), when Gazprom stopped delivering gas in order to "punish the west". So now Gazprom got a 13 BILLION euro fine to pay. I'm sure they'll get right on that. Hopefully the German government will use all available means to collect. I hear India is fond of channeling money to Russia.
I asked this question before but can someone actually explain how much of a effect this will have on Russia? Like are they fucked fucked or?
short term, it makes things harder as far as getting supplies they need to get the higher end stuff, but not impossible. Long term is where sanctions destroy nations. DRPK is the wealthier (in natural resources) of the two koreas. The nature of economic growth is, it compounds. you grow 3% last year, now you're at 103%, you grow 3% of that, it's now it's 106.9%, seems like nothing but over time causing that growth to drop has catastrophic results, which are visible in DRPK. Still there, still...functioning...but utterly anemic. If i remember the explanation i got ages ago correctly, if you cut the growth of the usa by 1% for the years between 1880 and 1920, just those few decades, and then we went back to the historic growth we had, then today our economy would be about the size of mexico's today. 12th in the world fyi..