Yeah, this really is the time for the EU to step up and show the world that we can be the geopolitical powerhouse that we’re destined to be. It’s also a chance to do something incredibly good with that power.

> We'd have to turn a blind to all the reports of genocide and other war crimes, murder, rape, looting and destruction. Mass deportation of children, ethnic cleansing through forced deportations and various political purges and executions. All of this happening in EUs backyard, in a country that wanted to be our partner and ally.

Nah, we would condamn all those crimes over and over again but who gives?

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It's a race against evil. If Ukraine is captured by the Nazis the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the earth. Do you understand me?

How? There's nothing in that list that they aren't self sufficient in or can source from China who is more or less at the top of the supply chain

We’d have to sanction the countries that are supplying Russia, which probably also supply the rest of the world, so we hit an invisible wall. Sanctions are just virtue signaling.

To be honest, I do not see steps that could lead to the abolition of hostilities.

Well, imagine there will be no 10nm processors, what will change?

fewer tanks? or ak47 will stop producing - no

It seems to me that the problem for the West is that people use everything on themselves (let's deprive people of their phones and they will go out into the street). This will not happen.

What is bad for a citizen of a Western country is not the same as bad for a citizen of Russia (tolerate).

Compare even how they strike in France and how in Russia, the usual protests. If I am not confusing, then there was a situation with railways (drivers).

I don't remember this happening here.

And the food will not end, I will not stop bringing and producing cars (at the old factories of Ford, Renault, Nissan, and so on). They will start selling Turkish and Iranian and Chinese clothes (and people outside major cities already bought clothes without a brand - I’m talking about people who don’t watch Netflix, don’t listen to spotify, don’t drink coconut frappuccino in Starbucks, I think you understand who I mean).

And in the end I come to this idea:

The West supports Ukraine with resources, but not people.

It must be understood that Russia did not completely introduce all troops into the territory of Ukraine. Or it can introduce (and here we will have an example of how I use nuclear weapons, even if it’s already working a little badly. That is, I want to say that even if there are 1 million military men who voluntarily go to war, this is already a disaster, but Russia has troops in reserve, in addition to the regular army). So even if the equipment is bad, there will simply be more people.

I do not want to offend anyone and do not whitewash the authorities, I'm just trying to think critically. Because of the sanctions, the bullet will not get stuck in the muzzle. Because of the sanctions, brainwashed people (who did not use Western things in everyday life) will not stop trusting Putin. Because of the sanctions, life will not end, but will only provide food for propaganda.

Understanding how many resources we spend on wars and other things in our world, it would be better if we spent them on science and the conquest and study of space. F**** up. :(

This is an incomprehensible and hopeless situation for people who do not want to get into politics (yes, many will shout on reddit that YOU SHOULD PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS). But understand a simple thought - if no one taught you this and did not put this knowledge into your brain, how should you get to this? What should the cash desk do in a city with 300k population?

She hears all her life that the West is bad. She works 10 hours a day for $500 a month. (go tell an avid gamer that you need to take care of your health, eat right and not sit at the computer for 8 hours a day - unless I'm trying to offend gamers :) I'm trying to give at least some example that it's hard to take and change your life, people don't want to change.

With such success, one could say - in ancient Egypt there was no Internet simply because they did not want it. I had to take it and do it. Well, that's not how it works.

No, you should not expect a 6 year old child to be able to calculate the mathematical formulas of a university professor.

What I want to say is that the country is 30 years old (Russia), which spent 10 years in dark times (90s).

You should not expect that overnight people will stand up and begin to understand politics, express their opinions competently, and so on. Now this is all a judgment in hindsight.

Sorry for this confusion, it's just that I often read here the call "Russians get up and solve your problem."

This kind of decoupling from the West is the kind of Decoupling the West wishes they could pull off from China

I think they’re just being realistic. People feel good about their leaders virtue signaling by sanctioning Russia, but it’s just a slap on the wrist. They’re still doing the same thing they were doing a year ago, with or without sanctions. Supplying Ukraine with weapons likely goes a bit further to aid things, but we’re still handing out guns, one year later.

Best way i can explain it is death by a thousand cuts. You sanction them a little, they find a way to work around it—then you sanction them a bit more, so they have to work around it again. Do this a lot, and they lose so much time and effort having to work around them. Economy’s shitty, people are tired and things look uncertain, it’s terrible for public morale.

> Might matter a bit on the margins, but probably won’t make a huge difference. Seems like the expert consensus is that the overall sanctions regime has been a bit of a dud.

Incidentally, I happen to still have an interview about this open in another tab, with the professor whose group maintains Yale's well known list of companies that are still doing business in Russia or have pulled out.

The IMF and Worldbank figures for Russian GDP and their forecast make it look as if the sanctions weren't having much of an effect. However, these figures are based on the data that Russia/Rosstat, as a member of those institutions, gives them. Since after the sanctions had been introduced, Rosstat has stopped submission of the normally required detailed data. So IMF and Worldbank can't run their own numbers, and have no choice but to rely on whatever Rosstat (read: Putin) tells them it's going to be.

The point is, we don't have the data to know how Russia's economy is actually holding up. Only indirect and anecdotal evidence suggesting the sanctions do work on the one hand, and on the other, we have Putin's word that the Russian economy is doing just fine.

Fair points. Idk how much it matters in the grand scheme of things but I have followed the Ruble over the last year. Since 8 months ago, its been dropping, and it hasn't stopped. It just reached it's pre-war level and it is still going down. So sanctions are hurting Russia, I wish it would be a faster effect to force Putin to stop the war, but it is hurting Russia.

I dont know why you are getting down votes.

We used to sell things to Russia. Now we sell to China, then they sell to Russia.

We used to buy from Russia. Now they sell to India, then we buy from India.

Over all, they took a hit. But it is just an inconveniences at this point.