Responding to Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, the international community is bombarding ordinary Russians with sanctions.
By Washington Examiner – Nikita Vladimirov
Mar 3, 2022
Putin and his loyal oligarchs will never bear the full brunt of these measures. While some sanctions rightfully target the Kremlin, others penalize anyone and anything remotely connected to Russia. Russian airlines have been banned from U.K. and EU airspace. The United States and the European Union have imposed restrictions on Russian banks, including bank accounts held by Russian nationals in Europe. And the list goes on. In theory, sanctions are designed to weaken Putin by pressuring the Russian people to demand change. In reality, however, broad sanctions of this nature have a remarkably poor track record of success.
Despite being subject to serious sanctions since 2014, Russia’s geopolitical posture has only become more aggressive and hostile. Likewise, global sanctions did little to sway regimes in North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. While necessary, sanctions against powerful individuals also rarely catch their targets by surprise. In the words of Russian Ambassador to Sweden Viktor Tatarintsev, “We don’t give a s***” about Western sanctions.
It’s important to remember that oppressed citizens of tyrannical regimes rarely have the luxury of marching against their government or participating in hip social media trends along with their favorite celebrities. No matter how severe the sanctions might be, most Russians will choose to stay home instead of rotting away in a Siberian prison. Who can blame them?
The Kremlin, of course, has also mastered the art of turning foreign sanctions into fuel for Russian nationalism and anti-American propaganda. And it doesn’t help when some sanctions border on the absurd. Under pressure from the international community, European football authorities recently banned the Russian football team Spartak Moscow from participating in continental competitions despite the fact that nearly half of its first-team players are not even Russian nationals. Putin will really feel the sting of this one.
Top line: Sanctions are an outdated tool in the modern world of geopolitics. Enhanced security cooperation, however, is not. While the world is now rushing to send military aid to Ukraine, this level of urgency should have been present in the months leading up to the Russian invasion.
Under the Trump administration, Ukraine received a crucial supply of arms shipments – a bold departure from the Obama White House, which refused to send weapons to the country. As a result of former President Donald Trump’s effort, Putin was forced to delay the invasion for several years. Indeed, he may have been discouraged from attacking altogether if countries such as Germany had listened to Ukraine’s recent plea for additional military equipment.
Ukraine also had little help to defend from Russian cyberattacks. The fact that the country has had to rely on a private U.S. citizen, Elon Musk, and not the U.S. government to restore its access to the internet clearly illustrates this point.
Multilateral defense treaties are also key to ensuring that Putin’s next target is neither isolated nor vulnerable.
Slapping sanctions on the Russian people to showcase your support for Ukraine is easy. Supplying Ukraine with timely military assistance, providing robust cybersecurity support, and negotiating defense agreements before the outbreak of war is hard but far more effective.
The latest flurry of sanctions will not tame Moscow’s aggressive geopolitical ambitions. But it will make ordinary Russian people pay a heavy price for Putin’s crimes. Bold preventive measures, not reactionary public posturing, are a better deterrent strategy against the Kremlin.
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Read More: Washington Examiner – Weapons, not sanctions, will deter the next Russian invasion
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