How are the Big Sanctions hurting Russia so far?

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/how-are-the-big-sanctions-hurting?s=r

We’re less than a week into the Big Sanctions, and already we’re starting to see considerable effects on the Russian economy and way of life. I’ll go through those in a moment, but first a quick refresher on what the “Big Sanctions” are, and how they’re supposed to work.

I’ve been using the term “Big Sanctions” so far to refer to two things: 1) The cutoff of Russian banks from the SWIFT bank messaging system, and 2) The restrictions on the ability of Russia’s central bank to conduct transactions with Western banks. These are “big” because they’re unprecedented, and because they’re expected to have a major systemic impact on the Russian economy.

It’s important to remember that these are financial sanctions. Countries are considering halting sales of Russian oil and gas, but the things that have been done so far are mostly about gumming up Russia’s financial system — making it hard for Russian banks to get loans, make loans, process payments, get their hands on foreign currency, and so on. It’s working so far — the ruble is at a record low, Russian banks are closing foreign branches, and there are plenty of other signs of stress in the system.

And let’s also recall that these sanctions have several potential purposes:

1. To hurt Putin’s rich allies and induce them to pressure Putin to stop the war
2. To hurt Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort in Ukraine
3. To increase popular unrest in Russia and thus pressure Putin to stop the war


*snip*

[Delphinus]

1. But

the Russian people have no way to fight back against this madman bully.

[dalton99a]

2. Kick