Are Biden's Sanctions on Russia Having the Opposite Effect?
It has been over a month since Putin invaded Ukraine in an attempt to grab Kyiv and Kharkiv, and both have failed miserably. His invasion, on the other hand, from Crimea to create a land bridge has been a success at a cost. What is now left is the Donbas region that has been an issue since the bloody 2014 war between pro-Russian forces. Once the regrouping and redeployments occur, Putin will probably seek to enlarge the already held area and getting a deeper chunk of Ukraine before peace comes. His forces are in positions to seriously threaten the Ukrainian forces holding this area by a pincer movement from the south of Donetsk and from the north, south of Kharkiv. To avoid encirclement and loss, hopefully, the Ukraine forces will pull back as the noose is tightened. Of course, they may hold until the very end and leave like they did in Debaltseve 2015, when Ukrainian forces had been surrounded except for a single road.
According to some reliable reports coming from inside Russia, it seems that Biden's sanctions are too slow in working and too limited in their scope. But that their impact has not sowed division within the Putin groups but unity because their propaganda that the West is trying to destroy Russia is true. Just look at the sanctions that increase all the time. But worse, Russia will now demand that any oil purchased by Europe (and that remains a lot) must be done in rubles, not dollars. This would help Russian economy. Europe is still importing oil from Russia despite the sanctions that have decreased it.
As for the Russian people, most have bought the Kremlin line and excuses for the war, at least publicly. Their media is very controlled and so it is not too surprising that most of them think the West is trying to destroy Russia. One just needs to see how many Western companies have pulled out, stopped doing business there. One can look at this in two different ways for different reasons. If you're a Russian digesting just what the media tells you, one would think that the West is against Russia.
Perhaps the only person that could talk sense to Putin is his daughter who lives in France. Talk about hypocrisy! She has been quoted that even herself cannot change her father's mind. Those in his inner circle have said that it would be suicide to talk to Putin in changing his mind and he listens to no one, anyway.
As far as the sanctions, it is obvious that those do not impact the battlefield much when the sanctions are not covering all the bases in their economy. Many banks are not sanctioned. There are loopholes that allow Russia to earn revenue by selling oil to their friends not on the sanction list. Biden's sanctions are half-ass. He knows it and yet does nothing to correct it. Why? Oh, he is afraid of pushing Putin too far! Putin has already said the sanctions are equal to a declaration of war.
If true, that the sanctions have had the opposite effect intended, that Russia is more unified against the West than before the war, once all of this over, it will be another cold war scenario of the West against Russia for many years later.
