[IdontRememberIt]

Why not punishing only the government: cancel all visas to the people working in the gov and especially their family. So no more rich gov kids in Western universities, etc.

I find a little unfair to punish people to push them in the streets and have them arrested, tortured or "administratively" punished (remember what happen after the Turkey coup in 2016? Military were punished but also many people working in the public sector.)

[woodruffw]

Sanctions are a form of economic warfare: they are intended to make broad swaths of the population suffer, with the goal of producing general discontent. A discontented civilian population means an unpopular war, and unpopular wars are harder to wage. Or so the theory goes.

[IdontRememberIt]

I can only see a list of suffering people without expected outcome: North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, URSS, Cuba, etc.

(Genuine question to History geeks) Do we have an exemple of mass sanctions on a country that worked? Why are we repeating strategies that do not seem to work?

Theses sanctions seems to be designed to only short term please the people/voters/journalists of the sanctioning countries but are terrible to the sanctioned country/people long term without solving anything.

[woodruffw]

I'm not enough of a history buff to say whether sanctions are consistently successful. But I will point out that the point of (broad) sanctions isn't to win wars: it's to punish governments by punishing their people, who are then expected to pressure the government to acquiesce.

Among the targets of US sanctions in the last 50 years, contemporary Russia is somewhat unique: it has a relatively large and urbanized middle class, one that's used to the benefits of global trade and cheap European travel. Sanctions that hurt those people seem, on face value, more likely to impact Putin's decision making than e.g. sanctions on North Korean peasant farmers.

[atoav]

Another perspective: Russian society as of now is mostly an bubble. They don't have media that talks about the war their country started. Cancelling SWIFT is giving them something they cannot silence away in order to maintain the bubble.

Cancelling SWIFT would be a very clear signal to all people in Russia that their government overstepped a line. Without punlic support from the public an offensive war is way harder to pull off.

[foverzar]

> They don't have media that talks about the war their country started

Stop spreading misinformation, this is not true.

This is basically the only thing that all russian-speaking media outlets are talking about. Plus, there is nothing preventing one from opening reddit and seeing what the western media has to say.

On the other hand, people in the West seem to be completely (and willingly!) disconnected from the situation in ru-net.

[atoav]

I am not a Russian and don't live in Russia, so maybe the reports I read about are faulty, e.g.: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/26/propaganda-fil...

[foverzar]

I will just give you some context:

Most news outlets in Russia nowadays aren't even registered as proper media, so they couldn't care less for any "propaganda filters".

The article tries to assert that there is a huge difference between a perception of a "military operation" and a "war", but in Russian "military" and "war" is the same word (the same word root): "военная", "война" -- so everyone is just calling it "war".

As an example, take look at this article (vc is a massively popular news/blogs site): https://vc.ru/finance/371584-glavnoe-v-ekonomike-na-fone-voy... -- use google translate to see what words are used and what people have to say in the comment section.

Plus, consider that Telegram is massively popular in Russia, people just subscribe to whatever they want and read whatever they want, wheteher it's RT, Reuters, or stuff like this: https://t.me/worldprotest or https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAFcF8lv6w7Y4RfSW5Q or https://t.me/svtvnews or, on the other hand, stuff like this: https://t.me/Doninside

I would actually argue that Russians have much more sources of information available: Russian, Ukraininan, Western, independent. The evident post-truth politics from all sides breeds radical skepticism. The current situation is far from what can be called "a bubble", probably even further from what is happening in the rest of the world.

[treis]

The problem is that rich gov kids would go to China or India then. Which is the fundamental problem of all these sanctions. Ultimately it's counter productive to push Russia into closer relationships with our rivals. And it hurts twice because it does so at some economic cost to the EU/US.

The path we're on is the worst for everyone involved.

[whodunnit]

Rich people don’t want to go to China or India, and I think if you compare the offerings of the West versus these other two countries for just a moment, you’ll understand why.

Russia is a classic abuser, the only way out from a relationship like that is to walk away regardless of the personal cost.

[treis]

>Rich people don’t want to go to China or India, and I think if you compare the offerings of the West versus these other two countries for just a moment, you’ll understand why

That's not really the point

>Russia is a classic abuser, the only way out from a relationship like that is to walk away regardless of the personal cost.

How exactly can the Ukraine walk away from Russia? Its impossible. So long as Russia has an army & a willingness to use it every country will have a relationship with them whether they like it or not.

[unstatusthequo]

Exactly. And ban re entry for a decade. When oligarch kids start showing up in mother Russia and bitching to their parents, it might help the privileged oligarchs realize they don’t have impunity outside their bubble and nobody outside Russia cares about their influence whatsoever.

[bilbo0s]

Just Devil's Advocate, but what do we do if those oligarch kids simply go hang out and party with their Chinese and Indian counterparts in Shanghai instead?

Part of the problem here is that we are not the only game in town anymore.

[throwuxiytayq]

Oh yeah, Chinese school sounds like lots of fun.

[jacquesm]

When you start a war of aggression you calculate in that there will be sanctions against your own people. This is first and foremost on Putin. Not that he cares, and probably not that this will be a popular sentiment in Russia.

The alternative to sanctions is a shooting war, it is probably a good idea to put as many steps in between that point and now as we can, who knows, there might be someone with a change of heart high enough up in the Russian ranks that it makes a difference.