Wednesday 18 January 2023

Why western sanctions have not forced Putin to his knees?

If the world was united against Russia, President Putin would now be on his knees unable to revive his country's economy and heading towards financial ruin. But of course this is not the case. While the western world, led by the United States, has imposed the heaviest sanctions ever against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, many other parts of the world are still doing business with Moscow and some of them have increased their trade with the Russians. So Russia is definitely frozen out and isolated as far as the West is concerned, but remarkably Putin can see that his country is surviving pretty well. The shops are still full of what the Russian people need and while oil and gas exports to Europe have partially dried up, countries such as India and China have eagerly stepped in to buy masses of the stuff to keep the Russian economy buoyant. This is seriously bad news. There are many other countries helping out Russia, notably North Korea and Iran but also nations in Africa which the Russians have been wooing. So the only thing that might force Putin to reconsider his military strategy in Ukraine is if he runs out of shells and missiles. Certainly he has problems, partly because of sanctions cutting off supplies of high-tech components. But again, he is getting help from elsewhere - North Korea and Iran. So I doubt we will get to a stage where the Russian invasion forces have no munitions left to continue fighting. So the great push by the West to so isolate Russia from the international community that it becomes a pariah state simply hasn't worked. Putin is struggling to keep afloat but he is not drowning. It's another old lesson learned, that sanctions never really achieve what they are supposed to achieve. There are always ways round the toughest of measures, and Putin has been adroit at finding them.

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