The EU Council adopted the 14th round of sanctions against Russia on June 24, aimed at tackling the circumvention of existing measures and to further restrict profits from Russia's energy industry.
Sanctions are usually not meant to targeted specific slices of the powerful. That’s a rhetoric that has been used to justify them but sanctions almost always try to deny common people their basic needs.
That’s why they “work” against nations like Cuba and North Korea which are in their infancy but not against nations like Russia which have a respectable industrial base of their own and are also deeply embedded in the global economy.
The sanctions targeted the Russian oligarchs quite a bit, by threatening their investments, properties and deposits in EU tax havens, like Cyprus and Greece. They were forced to transfer a bunch of assets back in Russia, which gave Putin the opportunity to crack down on their corruption and demanding that their wealth remains in Russia. Also, most importantly, he basically curbed their political power and political meddling. A big reason the Russian economy is doing so well is this returned wealth. So the first sanction packages basically backfired. The Europeans thought the Russian oligarchs would overthrow Putin if pressured. Turns out, Putin overthrew the Russian oligarchs.
The new sanction packages leave the oligarchs alone and target Russian government assets in Europe. And yes, all packages have targeted the ability of simple civilians to interact economically with anybody in the US or Europe.
Agreed. Putin had been building up to it for years though. The first sanctions made it possible to hasten this process. And the Russian oligarchs aren’t extinct or anything. They are still super-rich compared to the average Russian. They just can’t mess with the government right now, and they have to support the renewed semi-planned economy.
In this case, it seems like Russia is- while facing some short-term hassles, generally doing better economically than ever (or than since the fall of the Soviet Union, anyways).
The west has finally bitten off more than they could chew. Same with all the sanctions against China, and now it all is reaching a point where their sanctions machine falls apart altogether (hopefully soon, and hopefully the western regimes along with it). And eventually there’s going to be some truly magnificent backlash- the product of their own actions, not out of any malice by the rest of the world (though the west certainly deserves every bit of malice).
The west has destroyed all credibility in their financial machines, in their world economic order- and now they’re just running on fumes, economically, anyways. And they’ve done it all while hollowing their own real economies to increase their bottom line, turning their own imperial cores into deindustrialized hellholes- they’ve nothing to even fall back on, hell, their own citizens by-and-large hate them. An ocean of debt- and public discontent- and the entire world, or those with sanity anyways, moving themselves and their assets as far away from the rogue, deranged, and spiraling west as it faces its karma- 500 years of likely the worst karma (not to put any pseudoscientific/superstitious value to it) from unparalleled brutality, savagery, and barbarism (that of the imperialist west, not their victims they projected upon) is coming up. And even as someone living in an imperial core myself, as someone who feels the pain now and- even if I get out, will have friends and family feel the pain- all the same, the schaudenfreude, the righteousness of it all is going to be delicious. It already is. Hopefully we all survive to see it unfold, and to help the new, better world emerge.
Sanctions are usually not meant to targeted specific slices of the powerful. That’s a rhetoric that has been used to justify them but sanctions almost always try to deny common people their basic needs.
That’s why they “work” against nations like Cuba and North Korea which are in their infancy but not against nations like Russia which have a respectable industrial base of their own and are also deeply embedded in the global economy.
So the capitalist class will continue to enjoy excess, whole the proles suffer. Got it
The sanctions targeted the Russian oligarchs quite a bit, by threatening their investments, properties and deposits in EU tax havens, like Cyprus and Greece. They were forced to transfer a bunch of assets back in Russia, which gave Putin the opportunity to crack down on their corruption and demanding that their wealth remains in Russia. Also, most importantly, he basically curbed their political power and political meddling. A big reason the Russian economy is doing so well is this returned wealth. So the first sanction packages basically backfired. The Europeans thought the Russian oligarchs would overthrow Putin if pressured. Turns out, Putin overthrew the Russian oligarchs.
The new sanction packages leave the oligarchs alone and target Russian government assets in Europe. And yes, all packages have targeted the ability of simple civilians to interact economically with anybody in the US or Europe.
That sounds based actually, we should do this to our own oligarchs next
Agreed. Putin had been building up to it for years though. The first sanctions made it possible to hasten this process. And the Russian oligarchs aren’t extinct or anything. They are still super-rich compared to the average Russian. They just can’t mess with the government right now, and they have to support the renewed semi-planned economy.
In this case, it seems like Russia is- while facing some short-term hassles, generally doing better economically than ever (or than since the fall of the Soviet Union, anyways).
The west has finally bitten off more than they could chew. Same with all the sanctions against China, and now it all is reaching a point where their sanctions machine falls apart altogether (hopefully soon, and hopefully the western regimes along with it). And eventually there’s going to be some truly magnificent backlash- the product of their own actions, not out of any malice by the rest of the world (though the west certainly deserves every bit of malice).
The west has destroyed all credibility in their financial machines, in their world economic order- and now they’re just running on fumes, economically, anyways. And they’ve done it all while hollowing their own real economies to increase their bottom line, turning their own imperial cores into deindustrialized hellholes- they’ve nothing to even fall back on, hell, their own citizens by-and-large hate them. An ocean of debt- and public discontent- and the entire world, or those with sanity anyways, moving themselves and their assets as far away from the rogue, deranged, and spiraling west as it faces its karma- 500 years of likely the worst karma (not to put any pseudoscientific/superstitious value to it) from unparalleled brutality, savagery, and barbarism (that of the imperialist west, not their victims they projected upon) is coming up. And even as someone living in an imperial core myself, as someone who feels the pain now and- even if I get out, will have friends and family feel the pain- all the same, the schaudenfreude, the righteousness of it all is going to be delicious. It already is. Hopefully we all survive to see it unfold, and to help the new, better world emerge.
I don’t know where you are trying to go with this honestly
Just venting at this point