The White House says it is preparing additional “major sanctions” on Russia in response to opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death in an Arctic penal colony.
Even more major than the current major sanctions...
Well, yeah. When they were integrated into the global economy that had an incentive to follow international law. Now that they're completely separated they have no reason to bother anymore because they're building a parallel economy. Sanctions have only made things worse because now Russia can act with impunity and there's nothing anyone can do.
They never followed international law, and they always acted with impunity.
They were poisoning people all over Europe and treating their own citizens like shit this whole time. Pretending free access to western markets changed their behaviour is ridiculous.
They've clearly gotten worse since they were completely cut out.
Anyway, sanctions are a spent weapon. That only works when they can't find buyers and sellers outside the "rules based international order". That ship has sailed. Sanctions are a dead strategy.
That phrase is the one the US uses constantly, I'm using it to refer to the ecosystem of the US and its allies. They're the only people that are enforcing the sanctions.
And effect how? If the goal is to defeat Russia with sanctions that really doesn't look likely. Obviously they'd prefer them to go away but only in the sense that they'd prefer to make more money. It's not stopping them and it can't.
Chicken and the egg, my friend. The sanctions exist because of the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Russia invading Crimea in 2014 was them not following international law. They chose the path of chaos, not the west. You keep using the word "impunity" and I'm not sure you understand what sanctions are. Sanctions ARE the punishment.