[dh2022]

The biggest sanctions were adopted after the war started (and then the West kept piling up new sanctions every few months).

Are you suggesting the West should have put these harsh sanctions before the war? My recollection of Dec 2021 and Jan/Feb 2022 were that the West was trying to avoid inciting the crazy Russian dictator: Biden had two tele conferences with Putin in December, there were three meetings in Jan (OSCE - Russia, NATO - Russia, Lavrov - Blinken)

And I do not think the situation is unwinnable for the West (it is probably unwinnable for Ukraine as it will not be able to get its territory back). Russia is getting weaker with every man it loses, every tank is destroyed, every young man/woman who decides to leave. I would be surprised if Western Europe will want to do business with Russia for a generation - which basically makes Russia China's vassal for the same period of time.

Russia will be in bad shape for decades. The West will be just fine.

[int_19h]

The West should have put boots on the ground in Ukraine before Russia invaded. That was the one thing that would have prevented the war. Hell, they should have had EU peacekeepers along the line of contact back in 2015.

The kind of sanctions that we've seen since then seem to be mostly about appearances, with EU trying to pretend that it "really cares" despite this epic failure of foreign policy.

[lazide]

The west is screwed too, because Russia is (and has been) doing everything it can to poison that well too - and widely succeeding.

Or do you think all this authoritarianism sprouting everything is just random coincidence?

It’s classic crabs in a bucket, which Russia has always been good at.