Not to be a downer, but there may simply not be a solution.

The sanctions weren't intended to prevent military conflict- the threat of sanctions was. The threat failed.

Now the question should be, will following through on the threat mitigate the harm now or in the future? Against Russia, my guess is no. They also haven't been successful against Iran or any number of other counties.

It might be said that the effectiveness of sanctions is entirely reliant upon being able to keep a weak nation weak, rather than preventing a strong nation from preying upon weaker neighbors.

Depending on how Russia's economy looks in 3-6 months, it might still serve as a deterrent.

There's a sense in which even doctored polls can become (or contribute to) self-fulfilling prophecies, though. The key tactic of disinformation is to bombard the viewer with so many semi-legitimate sources that they have no time to consider each one on its merits; by the time you've seen that the "independent institution/pollster" is owned by someone with ties to X, you've already been hit by five other polls and think-pieces saying the same thing. At the end of the day, you invite the thought "is there actually a zeitgeist here, am I the one behind the times if I'm questioning what everyone else is saying" - and at that point, you're susceptible to propaganda. We should not discount Putin's purposefulness and confidence in deploying these tactics.

The numbers I saw went from 61% to 71%. I'm not sure if there is any way to get accurate, honest polls out of Russia, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that people support him now more than before, between the propaganda in the news and the impact the sanctions are having on them.

I buy that Putin has a good deal of support, even if I don't buy zdragnar's "all is lost" fatalist analysis.

George W Bush's approval ratings also spiked after the Iraq war, when our country was also flooded with propaganda and lies about the justification for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_George_W._Bush

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html

You can't trust polling numbers out of Russia but there is historical context for these types of full scale invasions to bring up approval ratings.

This is really good

I read this thread and found it interesting, but the mafia boss argument seems weaker than the simple desire of all businesses to have commoditized inputs and avoid vendor lock-in. The oil and gas guys who are friends with the boss are politically secure, do they really need to worry about usurpers? This poor stifled engineering nerd vs. big dumb mafia jock narrative seems a little too indulgent of the audience's biases...

Much crazier things have happened than revitalization of national industry. Whether their leadership has the intelligence and will to do this is of course another matter.

Caterpillar hasn't left Russia.

Thank you, that was a thought-provoking link.

It seems that certain kinds of economic integration such as supply-chain interdependence offer more leverage, while other kinds of integration such as buying oil and gas offer less.