Vladimir Putin is counting on a long war with Ukraine to exhaust his enemies before Russia. It's not out of the question. But the US and allies still have an opportunity to break this strategy..
Fundamental economic strength is the trump card of the West, if it finds the will to use it. American journalist and writer David Ignatius writes about this in an article for the Washington Post.. On February 24, the day the Russian invasion began, U.S. President Joe Biden said he would “make the Russian economy pay dearly now and in the long term… We will reduce our ability to compete in the high-tech economy of the 21st century.”.
On April 25, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin highlighted this threat to crush the Russian economy: “We want Russia to be weakened to the point where it is not capable of things like invading Ukraine.”. The Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, speaks of a "
But the West has never been known for strategic patience. And this summer, U.S. and European officials began to worry that Russians, accustomed to suffering, could endure longer in the battle for Ukraine, looking for ways to circumvent sanctions.. Popular opinion says that the longer the war goes on, the higher the chances of Russia to win.. So the West seems to be hoping that, at best, the situation will reach a bloody stalemate..
So how can the US and Europe overcome the July pessimism so that before winter it is Russia that will be hurt, and not Ukraine? The smartest answer to this question is to increase economic sanctions so that the grip on the Russian throat is steel. This will exacerbate Russia's greatest strategic weakness, which is that its forces are very spread out along a huge front line.. The best proof that sanctions are working, though slowly, comes from Russian officials themselves..
“The situation is not easy,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted last month..
“It will take us about a decade for the economy to return to the level of 2021,” acknowledged the head of Sberbank German Gref, adding that the number of freight traffic to Russia fell six times due to Western sanctions.
“We are also playing the long game,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, adding that Washington has formed a coalition of 30 countries supporting sanctions..
Now semiconductor exports to Russia fell by 74% compared to the previous year.
“Without these components, it is impossible to maintain a modern army,” Raimondo explained..
[see_also ids\u003d"
But thanks to high energy prices, Moscow still has a lot of money.. But it's hard for her to buy everything she needs because of Western export controls.. A senior U.S. Commerce Department official told Ignatius that U.S. exports of anything Russian defense, technology or energy companies need have plummeted 95.9% since 2021.. Biden administration may be overly optimistic about the impact of sanctions. But a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics last month showed they do have an impact on Moscow.. Using export data from 54 countries that accounted for 90% of Russian imports last year, the experts found that exports of goods from countries that supported sanctions against the Russian Federation fell by 60%, and from countries that did not, by 40%.. Fake companies and corrupt intermediaries have also been uncovered to help circumvent restrictions.. But there are fewer than expected..
“We do not see any attempts by any of the countries to circumvent our export controls, including with China and Iran,” Raimondo said..
Foreign support of Russian technology and telecommunications companies is gradually evaporating. Ericsson and Nokia curtailed all operations in Russia. More surprising that Chinese tech giant Huawei did it. Microsoft did not just stop its business in Russia. The company is actively fighting Russian cyberattacks.
The Russian army is rapidly losing equipment. And it won't be easy to replace him.. The author, citing Ukrainian reports, writes that Russia has stopped or limited production at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and Uralvagonzavod. The production of surface-to-air missiles at the Ulyanovsk Mechanical Plant also stopped.. The main Russian shipyards also suffered.
[see_also ids\u003d"
Russian Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev admitted that the sanctions " For example, in the aviation sector, the US and Europe have banned the supply of spare parts or maintenance of several hundred Boeing and Airbus aircraft belonging to the Russian fleet.. This forced local airlines to significantly reduce the number of flights and start disassembling some aircraft for spare parts.. The EU aviation regulator last month expressed "
But one can imagine that, despite all the sanctions, Russia has maintained its bloody offensive against Ukraine.. What's next? To understand Putin's potential problems, just look at the map. Russia is by far the largest country in the world. To support his senseless, illegal war against Ukraine, Putin has drawn forces from the Far East, from the Baltics, regions that have a long border with South Asia.. He runs a country that is falling apart very slowly. And Moscow has too few people to defend it. Putin is playing a daring game. But he has fewer trump cards than it might seem.