Putin uses the indecision of the West to achieve his goals in Ukraine
Newsweek writes that fatigue and fear of anti-Russian sanctions are growing in the West. The author believes that the "sanctions blitzkrieg" failed. Restrictions of the West do not stop Putin in Ukraine.
Western sanctions against Russia were aimed at destroying its economy, isolating its most powerful oligarchs and causing unacceptable levels of internal unrest in Moscow.
Instead, the West itself is shaking.
The Russian special operation in Ukraine and related sanctions have created many problems for the West, including increasing and persistent inflation, rapidly rising gasoline prices and uncertainty about the availability of natural gas supplies for the heating season, which is only a few weeks away. Political uncertainty is growing in Europe, the latest confirmation of which is the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, one of the staunchest European supporters of Ukraine, and disagreements in the Italian government.
These problems raise questions about the strength and durability of Western support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, a country that, according to the European Commission, remains the main supplier of oil, natural gas and solid fossil fuels to the EU.
"Everyone I've talked to is afraid of what might happen in the next few months," said Bruce Stokes, visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. — With high energy prices and different economic situations in different European countries, won't the local public less support the firm position that we have jointly taken regarding Russia and its special operations in Ukraine?"
The uncertainty created by the Ukrainian crisis and related sanctions may actually benefit Vladimir Putin.
"To some extent, the current chaos serves Putin's interests," William Burns, a former US Deputy Secretary of State and current director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said in an interview with The Atlantic.
He believes that when internal uncertainty in the West is high and citizens lose confidence in traditional institutions in democratic states, such authoritarian opponents as Russia win. "All this serves the interests of Russia and Putin," he added. "The more chaotic and contradictory the picture in the West is, the more room for maneuver, according to Putin, he has, and the less effective the West's counteraction to Russian aggression is likely to be."
Since Russia launched a special operation in Ukraine on February 24, the West has adopted a number of sanctions to punish the Kremlin. First of all, it affected the disconnection of Russia from the SWIFT payment clearing network and the termination of major export operations.
In addition to these sanctions against the government, the White House estimates that since February of this year, more than a thousand American and multinational companies have decided to cease or suspend their activities in Russia, closing thousands of jobs and reducing production by billions of dollars.
When these sanctions were first introduced, NATO politicians expected that they would "quickly negate all of Russia's economic achievements over the past 15 years."
Indeed, as a result of the sanctions, the Russian economy has suffered to a certain extent.
Foreign trade has fallen, and the poverty rate has increased. Inflation has jumped to almost 14.5%, and goods and materials have become more scarce. According to a Reuters poll, Russian GDP is expected to shrink by 7.1% this year.
But although the sanctions have negatively affected certain sectors of the Russian economy, it is still impossible to give an unambiguous assessment of their overall impact on it.
Answering the question whether Western sanctions were successful, Russian political analyst Ilya Matveev told the American public radio NPR that it depends on the criteria used: if their effectiveness is judged by the extent to which sanctions deterred Putin from continuing the special operation in Ukraine, then they were not successful.
"Putin is determined to continue his operation in Ukraine, and mentally he is absolutely ready for a long conflict," Matvey said. "Sanctions as such cannot change his position."
Matveev added that the sanctions did not lead to an immediate economic collapse of Russia, as some experts initially predicted.
After falling to a record low in February after the first round of sanctions, the Russian ruble recovered to a seven-year high in June. According to Bloomberg, this year it is the best currency in the world.
According to the American Center for Strategic and International Studies, despite a significant decline in Russian exports, revenues from oil and gas, Russia's largest trading asset, have increased by almost 80% this year.
At a hearing in the US Senate Subcommittee on Cooperation in Europe and Regional Security in June, senior adviser to the US State Department Amos Hochstein was asked whether Moscow now receives more revenue from the sale of oil and gas than a couple of months before the start of the special operation.
"I can't deny it," Hochstein told lawmakers.
"We didn't expect Russia's current account surplus to really grow because they earn so much money from oil exports," he added.
These revenue streams, combined with low external debt obligations, have allowed Russia to avoid the worst effects of international sanctions so far, said Mikhail Alekseev, an economist at Indiana University.
"They won't starve. There will be no famine in Russia," he told NPR. "It's just that the goods they can produce and consume will become easier and easier."
Alekseyev said that the assessment of the effectiveness of sanctions depends on considering the time of their action.
"If the goal is a rapid and complete collapse of the Russian economy, then no, sanctions do not work because the Russian economy continues to function," he said. "But if the goal is to weaken Russia economically over time, then sanctions work 100%."
Unfortunately, the supporters of sanctions may not have enough time and patience.
In an interview with Newsweek, Moscow's ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, warned that Western sanctions would backfire.
"Plans to strangle our country with sanctions are not working," he said. "The thoughtless imposition of restrictions against us only aggravates the situation in the US economy."
"So it turns out that in the anti—Russian fever," he added, "Washington is ready to shoot itself in the foot and dance at the same time. It looks absurd."
Although President Biden has promised to support Ukraine "as long as it takes," recent opinion polls show that rising food and energy prices in the United States — by almost 9% and 7.5% year—on-year, respectively - reduces public support for anti-Russian sanctions.
"Of course, many people in our country secretly assumed that the conflict would end very quickly," Stokes said.
But since the special operation in Ukraine is already in its fifth month, the annual inflation rate in the United States for the 12 months ending in June 2022, according to usinflationcalculator. com, is 9.1% — this is the highest since 1981 (then it was 10.33%), the first year of Ronald Reagan's presidency (data from macrotrends. net).
The results of a public opinion poll conducted by the Morning Consult agency show that now less than half of Americans (47%) support anti-Russian sanctions if they cause an increase in prices for goods inside the country. In April, there were 56% of such voters. Even fewer Americans, only 44%, believe that their country is obliged to protect Ukraine.
Senator Chris Coons, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who attended the NATO summit in Madrid last month, considers these changes in the mood of Americans a serious problem.
"I am concerned about the factor of population fatigue in various countries due to the economic costs of sanctions and other urgent problems," Koons told The New York Times.
Stokes of the German Marshall Fund agreed it was a matter of time.
"Now that Russia is clearly tightening its military strategy in Ukraine, we should count on the effect of our economic sanctions only in the long term, hoping that over time we will be able to undermine their strategy," he said.
"But, as one European politician told me," Stokes added, "although I myself am in favor of sanctions, but my voters should heat their homes."
Author: Jalen Small
Comments from Newsweek readers
Greg Gibbons
I am a supporter of Vlad Putin and white Christian Russia. I do not support the Jewish transvestite Zelensky or any of his American patrons from Brooklyn or Long Island... My wife Roshan from Crown Heights is of the same opinion... And I certainly don't support Joe Biden and all these guys who funded and pulled him into the presidency in 2020.
Kevin Barsi
What happened to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan? Wasn't that war planned to bleed the Soviets dry? It's good that this is not exactly what is happening in the West now.
Rayne Hell
The West is forcing itself to bleed with its stupid self-destructive sanctions.
David Morris
And I'll tell you what will happen. If Ukraine loses, it will blame the Jews for everything. After all, Zelensky is a Jew himself.
If Russia loses, they will blame the Jews all the more.
So Jews don't need to get involved with anyone, and they should rely only on themselves.
peace
"We didn't expect that the Russians... they will earn so much money on the sale of oil."
This reminds me of the Fed's recent statement: "We now have a better understanding of how little we know about inflation."
Let's face it, the American empire is ruled by Incompetence and Despair. Creating chaos is the only thing our leaders are really good at. It's like throwing a boomerang blindfolded over and over again, hoping that it will hit the target someday.
Washington's pernicious policy has been repeatedly confirmed in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc., and now in the proxy war with "someone else's hands" in Ukraine. Americans never learn anything, they are too busy defending both sides of the same coin.
Just A
Western sanctions were NEVER planned in the expectation that they would lead to the desired effect, measured in weeks or even several months.
All these media only drive deliberately false information!
Putin knew and expected some, and maybe most, sanctions, so he introduced energy purchases by European countries in rubles, thus, at least temporarily supporting the Russian currency.
As for inflation, it was growing long before February 24, 2022. Yes, Putin's special operation in Ukraine has exacerbated the problem of inflation in our country. But she is not to blame for our troubles.
I am absolutely convinced that the pressure cooker is boiling, and the pressure in it is growing. So far, no one wants to open the valve to relieve pressure. We're going to see this pressure cooker explode soon. Constant threats and insinuations (real tactics or tactics of intimidation) may well result at some point in an explosion in our country, intentionally or unintentionally.
PATRIOT
It was Biden who lit the fuse on a bomb called "global inflation."
Biden spent his entire election campaign making promises.
During his presidency, he has not fulfilled a single one. Do the math yourself.
Rayne Hell
The main responsibility of any Government is responsibility to its people. The United States and its allies position harming Russians above helping and caring for their citizens. What a pitiful and humiliating state of things!
