‘Kim Jong Un on Steroids’: How Putin's War Deprives Russia of All It Was Proud of

There has never been an example in the history of the modern world when sanctions against an aggressor would stop a war by themselves.

Obviously, this will not happen now. Nevertheless, Western pressure is needed. It's just that it has a different goal. Sanctions are a long game. They must destroy Russia. And not only economically.

Read about the upcoming new realities in Russia, key risks and scenarios at the international level in an article by Sergiy Sydorenko, editor of ‘European Pravda’, Isolation and Suffering: What to Expect from Putin and Russia under the Sanctions.

The main news from Saturday night was disconnecting Russia from SWIFT. But our joy was premature. It turned out last night that a key element of the sanctions had been relaxed to reach a compromise.

The joint decision of the EU and the G7 states that "selected Russian banks are removed from the SWIFT messaging system. This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally".

The list of banks subject to this decision is not yet published.

Yet, the new package of sanctions against Russia is still significant. 

At least two of its elements will be painful for the Kremlin.

The first is the restriction of the assets of the Russian central bank. We are still waiting for a legal decision on this issue, but if it comes to freezing the entire Russian state reserve in dollars, euros, pounds, and yen, it could lead to the collapse of the Russian ruble. The second is the G7's promise to start hunting for the assets of Russian oligarchs. But here, too, we must wait for the implementation.

Altogether with other measures, this will make life in the aggressor country not the same as before. Among others, loss of visas and transport options by Russians in Europe. The EU has already announced that it will suspend the visa facilitation agreement, and several EU countries (Latvia, Czechia) will stop issuing visas to Russians at all.

All EU Eastern member-state bordering Russia have closed their airspace to Russian aircraft, and Russia closed for theirs in turn. The southern air corridor (including to "fraternal Serbia" via Bulgaria and/or Romania) is also closed.

Even getting to Kaliningrad from Moscow, you'll have to fly by sea, making a giant hook. And this is a very painful symbolic "kick" for Russia.

True, this decision costs for the EU. For Finnish FinnAir, this decision will be especially painful - its business model is based on transit from Asia. All buyers from AliExpress, including Ukrainian ones, will also suffer - air delivery is becoming uncompetitive. But this is a war. This is not about counting pennies and cents.

In a few days, Russia was deprived of all the attributes giving reasons to its citizens to be proud. Even those citizens who were raised on Russian propaganda.

Some time ago, Olympic anti-doping sanctions became a painful slap in the face for Russia. But now they seem a trifle.

Russia is being deprived of hosting all sporting events, even those planned for the coming months.

Ahead is another battle, no way smaller. It is a battle for the UN.

Putin is outraged by what is happening. He is outraged by the humiliation by the West, outraged by the sanctions, and, above all, outraged that Ukraine has not been defeated yet.

Therefore, there is a severe risk that we, Ukraine and the world, will face the mad actions of the "dog driven into a corner". And it's even more dangerous given that this "dog" is a crazy dictator with inner complexes and a nuclear weapon.

Read more in the article by Sergiy Sydorenko Isolation and Suffering: What to Expect from Putin and Russia under the Sanctions.