Moscow retaliates against Western sanctions with export bans | Hacker News Reader

Moscow retaliates against Western sanctions with export bans

reuters.com

50 pointsmudro_zboris135 comments

The Iron Curtain cut through the heart of Europe, dividing east from west. Curtain 2.0 looks to be forming only around Russia, walling it off from all of Europe. Things will be so much worse for people on the inside this time. It will be like Soviet Russia without the Warsaw Pact to support it. It is one thing to be without Twitter and Hollywood movies, but can Russia feed itself? Can any country? Modern industrial agriculture just assumes parts and equipment can flow easily across borders. How soon before that too is locked behind sanctions?

They’ve got plenty of opportunities with China.

That is such an unequal relationship. China is not kind to its colonies.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

At the cost of almost everything. China has vassals, not partners.

For now. But we are already seeing a few chinks in that armor. China prizes stability. Countries that start wars over imagined slights do not promote stability. China's largesse is not unlimited nor does it ever come without a price.

Maybe… their relationship with North Korea pints too exceptions to that.

They waited to go to war until after the Beijing Olympics, in coordination with China [0]. And China has been cheering them on [1]. Looks like someone made a friend.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/us/politics/russia-ukrain... [1] https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/03/10/china/china-russia-disinf...

> They waited to go to war until after the Beijing Olympics, in coordination with China. And China has been cheering them on. Looks like someone made a friend.

Friends don't make friends delay invasions so that they will get bogged down in mud, or egg them on in disastrous courses of action that happen to serve the geopolitical interest of the cheerleader by consuming attention of geopolitical rivals.

That's callous exploitation, not friendship.

Crimea was invaded days after the 2014 Sochi games. The rest of Ukraine days after the 2022 Beijing games. It's becoming a Russian tradition.

If China allows after 2026 Winter Olympics it will be the Kazakhstans turn.

More like Georgia. In Kazakhstan the threat are socialists only

It's not over an 'imagined slight', but bringing back in old soviet states, weakening the EU/NATO (or preventing its expansion), and capturing Ukraine's agriculture and industry, both of which are significant, but the economy was also $800BN compared to Russia's $4400BN and it would have been a sizeable addition.

China is somewhat happy to support those goals; while everyone is fussing with Putin, they get to kick off expansion in the south china sea.

> For now. But we are already seeing a few chinks in that armor. China prizes stability. Countries that start wars over imagined slights do not promote stability. China's largesse is not unlimited nor does it ever come without a price.

China definitely prizes domestic stability, but its current leadership is also not keen on a stable US-led international order.

Russia absolutely made their move after consultation with China. We’re seeing Nato vs China/Russia unfolding

And China will not not notice that it is the sole buyer of Russian products?

What Putin did to Ukraine, made Russia smaller and weaker, and there is no going back.

China wants to export a bunch of stuff to Russia as well. They aren't going to ruin that two way relationship just to get a discount on agri imports.

There have been a number of negative indicators on that front in the last couple days, most recently:

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-sa...

All of this stops the day Russia stops attacking Ukraine, it’s not like Russia is a helpless victim here.

Edit: I agree there will be reverberating consequences. Criminals have to pay their debt to society. Russia is already deep in a hole. Even if this war stops today, their economy is set back many years. The economic might of the peaceful world is being used to make an example of a warmongering nation. But Russia can choose to stop digging. There is no end-game for Putin in continuing this war.

I'm not sure about that. Even if every Russian tank turned around and went home, the sanctions will still be there for a while. There is already a call for seized Russian assets to be used for rebuilding efforts. Russia's credit rating will not bounce back quickly. And countries from Canada to Germany are looking to ween themselves off of Russian energy products. Damage has been done.

Even if the sanctions stop, I don't know if all the companies that left will come back the next week, month or year. There is restitution that needs to happen.

I don't think it's restitution that the companies care about. It's the perceived instability that will keep them from going back in.

They had to pull out once at great cost. They're going to expect that they might need to pull out again if they go back in.

Predicting the future is hard.

I imagine there'd be much pressure for Putin to resign, or age-out, and a calmer leader to ascend, before significant forward progress is made in healing relations.

Not now that Russia is nationalizing all the businesses that pulled up stakes.

If that means one less Russian tank in Ukraine so be it

Look to how North Korea is doing. They're also a client state of China. They (kinda) survive. Russia will too.

>but can Russia feed itself

I saw some article on this topic, apparently 100% of "material" for inseminating cows is imported. Also like 80% of wheat seeds and majority of potato seeds (or whatever). Something similar with chicks

My grandad was a farm worker back in the old days before artificial insermination. You used to have a guy drive by with a bull, and it would take care of the process for you.

Much more damming, for Russia anyway, is that they apparently don’t have a single factory producing ballbarings. That isn’t going to be an issue for a while, and then it is really going to be an issue.

> Much more damming, for Russia anyway, is that they apparently don’t have a single factory producing ballbarings

They'll just get them from Ukraine which has plenty of such factories.

They can probably feed themselves. Growing calories is something we're good at, especially Russia.

The hard part is dealing with a scenario where there is plenty of wheat, but people have no money to buy it.

Ireland, in the 1840s suffered a horrific famine. Grain was being exported the while time. Food existed. People couldn't afford it.

During the US' great depression, people were hungry while agricultural products piled up, rotted in or burned to defend a price floor.

I don't think Russia will starve, but economics is hard. There are a lot of ways this can get really bad.

Well, the wheat will be affordable because Russia won't be able to export it.

But then that only means it's not attractive for the farmers either.

They're going to manipulate their currency the same way China does.

Keynes said: "Anything we can actually do, we can afford". Money is just a way of divvying up the productive capacity of a country, so not being able to afford a country's own production is either a preference for foreign trade or a distribution problem.

Not that is much comfort to Russian's -- Russia has a massively unequal distribution of wealth.

> Russia has a massively unequal distribution of wealth.

The Netherlands has the highest wealth inequality in the world.[0] No one considers that some backwater country, or its people starving or somehow impoverished.

There's more that's going in Russia than "a massively unequal distribution of wealth."

[0] https://uweb.berkeley.edu/2021/04/11/the-duality-of-the-dutc... It's also the oldest country to implement capitalism. Maybe capitalism plays a role in producing wealth inequality? It's certainly been increasing in the US since the 1980s, when "greed" was embraced as good and we started shipping jobs overseas.

Russia has inequality, poverty and widespread sanctions. Getting rid of just one of those three factors would allow them to afford food.

> Getting rid of just one of those three factors would allow them to afford food.

According to the USDA, 37 million Americans are food insecure.[0]

I'd like Americans to be able to afford food. What factors do you think are preventing that in the US? Is it inequality? Poverty? Something else? (We don't have sanctions as far as I know.)

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/02/magazine/food...

> the top 20% in the Netherlands earns only 4 times the income the bottom 20% do. As a comparison, the U.S’s top 20% earns 16.65 times the amount the bottom 20% do.

> However, this article isn’t meant to push the false narrative that the Netherlands’ citizens are all miserable as a result of this wealth gap because they aren’t. In many metrics of standards of living, the Netherlands is ranked among the highest in the world. In fact, the Netherlands placed 10th on the social progress index and 8th on the Human Development Index.

For some reason, the linked article claims the Netherlands has a Gini coefficient of 0.902 but the linked source claims a Gini coefficient of 0.281, significantly lower.

I can find no other sources claiming a Dutch Gini coefficient higher than 0.3 at any point in recent history. A Gini coefficient of 0.902 is practically unheard of, perhaps the article was written in error? Seems strange to put so much effort into writing an article without checking the source or questioning the number.

By comparison, Russia's Gini coefficient is 0.375 with the noted caveat that it can be very hard to track the true wealth of the most powerful Russians. The United States is 0.414 according to same source.

From How The Dutch Economy Shows We Can't Reduce Wealth Inequality With Taxes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot4qdCs54ZE

> The Netherlands skew falsely high on the GINI coefficient because house loans are insured by the state, causing many families to technically be in large debt, beyond the value of their houses.

That makes it hard to trust the wealth numbers, e.g. things like "the top 10% of the country owns 60% of the wealth" (according to the OCED). The bottom 60% of the country owns "almost no" wealth. It also explains why, if you visit The Netherlands, it doesn't seem like it is struggling with inequality…

Source: https://www.oecd.org/netherlands/OECD2015-In-It-Together-Hig...

Keynes was not a farmer. Nobody can afford to not plant during planting season, not harvest during harvest. There are all sorts of things that a country is capable of doing at time A that will spell their doom come time B.

This is true, but Keynes was just encouraging a macro perspective, in that statement.

An economy, by definition, can afford it's output.

It's still true that what we build, destroy, deplete and such affect the future. All keyenes was trying to spell out was that we can't really save or borrow from the future outside of these kinds of things. Economic output doesn't store like that.

With the amount of land and oil they have, food would never be an issue. Even an isolated Russia can conjure up basic lorries and tractors. The real question is would ordinary Russians be content in life without most modern amenities? Sure they can barter their natural resources in exchange for goodies from China but at what price?

> Curtain 2.0 looks to be forming only around Russia

And Belarus.

Different countries today, but the etymology of the name remains telling. Belarus = Byelorussia = Belaya Rus = White Russia.

Well, if you're going to go by what the Russians themselves call stuff in Russian, then Ukraine (or at least a big chunk of it) is called "Little Russia", so... Maybe better not go by that, eh?

I mean, if we were to go by what people call places as a valid indicator for which people the places belong to, then everything from the Atlantic as far east as all of Poland and much of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia used to be called Grossdeutschland ("Greater Germany") as late as in my grandparents' youth... So better not.

And a bunch of pro-Russian puppet states Putin is building by conquest of all (if he succeeds completely in Ukraine) or part (South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, and, with only partial success in Ukraine, Donbas and Luhansk) of some former-Soviet European states. But, still, limited to a subset of ex-Soviet territory, not the broad expand of Eastern Europe right up through part of Germany that the old Iron Curtain contained.

Russia is a leading producer and exporter of wheat, corn, and fertilizer [1][2]. The question you may want to ask is whether the rest of the world be able to feed itself if Russia loses access to its markets [3]?

[1] https://www.rbth.com/business/332948-russia-leading-wheat-ex...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-04/russia-ca...

[3] https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2022/0309/1285347-world-foo...

Russia's top agriculture export markets are Kazakhstan, Belarus, China, Ukraine and Turkey. Out of those, Ukraine and Turkey probably can't be count on to remain open with sanctions. But the "rest of the world" seems open if we just assume that China is Russia's main agri importer.

Yeah, with Czech tractors - https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1501369950463836164

Maybe someone can enlighten me, but is this not the equivalent of saying "You can't fire me - I quit"? Are there any practical consequences from this besides symbolism?

If they extend them to gas, we Euros are fucked hard.

They can't redirect a gas pipeline. If they sell it to Asia instead they will have a much higher overhead in transportation. Then they'd have to deal with the leverage that Asia has over little competition.

They can conservate it for the better times.

They really need cash flow, they are on the brink of bankruptcy

When this renewable energy fad fades out?

Gas is used a lot in chemistry, I'm not sure whether it's easy to replace it.

If they extend it to fertilizers a lot of people will feel the effect.

> Russia produces 50 million tons of fertilizers every year, 13 percent of the world's total. The country is a major exporter of potash, phosphate, and nitrogen-containing fertilizers, all of which are major crop and soil nutrients.

Source: https://southeastagnet.com/2022/03/07/russian-ministry-recom...

If I was him I'd shut it down and use environmental retoric to justify it. "We should leave it in the ground, what about future generations?" sort of stuff. The mental gymnastics would be Olympic level.

There's a "mental gymnastics doping scandal" joke somewhere in there.

As has been the case for decades. Here's a paper from 2007: A need to cut EU-dependence on Russian gas

> The recent gas price 'confrontations' that Russia engineered with the Ukraine and Belarus have exacerbated European concerns in respect of energy supply security.

https://archive.nordregio.se/en/Metameny/About-Nordregio/Jou...

how would they pay for the war if they don't sell gas to us in Europe?

Besides, the EU presented the plan to get rid of the RU gas dependency:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/8/22967244/european-union-ru...

At the moment, they aren't paying for much. Most of what they're using (weapons, vehicles, fuel, ammo) is coming out of storage, reserves, etc. Soldier pay is in rubles.

That's not to say russian doesn't need money, but this isn't that kind of war... at this point.

> how would they pay for the war if they don't sell gas to us in Europe?

Degraded capacity and suffering of the Russian people, mostly. The consumables they can build they will, everything else will get used up in the hope that the war is won before the capacity to fight it is fully degraded, and that once there is a fair accompli in Ukraine, a sufficient subset of the world will see no point in further sanctions and they’ll be able to use the expanded economic power from their victory to build back.

(I don't think it's a good plan, but it's all they have left.)

Oh they won't

Not to mention Russian gas is 30% of EU gas (on average), so it would be a crunch but not a cut-off

Unless they would like the Ruble going even lower.

If it is all out war, do they care?

Absolutely. Russian elites are 100% gobsmacked right now. This is surreal to them. Give some time for the sanctions to percolate.

News are that we'll have replace 2/3 of Russian gas from somebody else by the end of the year [1]. It's going to be a rougher transition if we have to replace all of it but it's worth it. Same with wheat and oil. Hard times for a while but better than having to bow to Mr Putin. And this is only money, not bombs like in Ukraine.

By the way, the countries we'll be buying from are not much nicer than Putin's Russia (some of them maybe even less so) but at least they are smaller and hopefully more manageable. The next one to cut ties with should be China but that's a giant rope to undo.

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/europe-plans-to-slash-r...

Maybe not as much as it's made out to be?

Only a few european countries rely heavily on russian gas (on the top of my head, germany and italy).

It wouldn't be fun, but we can heavily invest in converting heating systems, and turn off some electricity sinks (industrial equipment, etc). Make the grid smarter to turn off equipment when demand is high.

Meanwhile, accelerate the deployment of alternative energy sources, storage, and diversify hydrocarbon procurement sources.

Basically what should have been done progressively, not that it wasn't called out. Both reducing reliance on Russia and phasing out carbon-intensive energy sources. It's mind-blowing that we made no progress on these, and now it looks like germany is doubling down on it.

You need a large alignment to have any real effect. Even the things we may need from them we can buy from another country that bought from them. Russia doesn't have the political network to prevent this from happening.

The catch is that a lot of these exports are bulk goods, which are sensitive to transport cost. It's why, for example, Russia exports so much gas to Germany. It's not for nothing that a large swath of the EU became dependent on Russian energy and wheat.

If this was about Gas to EU it would be a much bigger issue. The article is about what is being sanctioned though.

Russia and Ukraine generate a quarter of the world's grain, and nearly as much so of corn.

Ukraine was pretty much written off for this season, but Russia shutting off grain exports is going to make things worse. However, it's yet another loss of income for them when they've already lost most of their oil/gas export income. My guess is that the grain and corn will go to China.

The US pays a lot of farmers to sit on their asses, so there's plenty of capacity; if the federal government acts fast and farmers are smart...

> Russia and Ukraine generate a quarter of the world's grain, and nearly as much so of corn.

They generate a quarter of the grain export. That's a very important difference. Russia stopping wheat exports would be a very bad thing, but it's not nearly as catastrophic as some present it to be.

"A quarter of the grain that other countries need just went poof" is pretty catastrophic for all the poorer countries that need to buy that grain.

They're going to be highly receptive to Russia's suggestions politically.

Look at the countries that have abstained in the UN votes...

Some few Russian products are in high demand. Natural gas, as others have said.

Russia is the third biggest supplier of nickel, and iirc the biggest supplier of high grade nickel- a key component in many applications, not the least of which is in lithium batteries.

London recently had to suspend nickel trading because the price was astronomically high. There will be no getting off of fossil fuels without nickel, and not anytime remotely soon without Russian nickel.

Lithium iron phosphate batteries are a type of lithium ion battery that does not require nickel or cobalt. They're already used in many electric vehicles including standard-range Tesla vehicles. They're also a preferred choice for grid scale storage because the modestly lower energy density of LFP chemistry doesn't matter for a battery that sits in one place for years.

How are they tying up the cells together? That's usually done with Nickel bars.

Nickel plated copper. Doesn't help much, since copper is one of the few things more expensive than nickel...

I'm not aware of a time when copper was more expensive than nickel. It wasn't within the last 25 years:

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/nickel

There is plenty of nickel in Canada (Sudbury Basin). Raise the price a little and there will be plenty of non-Russian nickel available around the world.

Sure, you just need a decade or so to get past all the environmental reviews, inevitable protests and NIMBYs to expand enough to cover not only the loss of the largest supplier but also the growing demand as EVs and other applications continue to grow.

By the time you're halfway done, we'll be importing from the Russians again and the investment will collapse.

>London recently had to suspend nickel trading because the price was astronomically high.

Chinese owned LME suspended Nickel trading because: "China's Tsingshan Holding Group, one of the world's top nickel and stainless steel producers, had been building a short position in nickel since last year, betting prices would fall, three sources familiar with the matter said."

It was a short squeeze and Chinese company was about to lose a shitton of money so they closed the market to cover their own.

The sanctions may be selective, and what Russia bans may be outside of those sanctions and affect many third countries. Not just from the direct effects, it could also increase prices even if you are able to find a replacement for those exports from a different country. Possible problematic exports:

- Wheat exports: 17.6% of the global wheat exports are from Russia, 8% are from Ukraine which may fall under Russia control. [1]

- Potash exports (fertilizer): Russia and Belarus and #2 and #3 in global exports of potash. [2]

- Gas: Russia supplies roughly 40% of the EU's gas [3]

[1] https://www.worldstopexports.com/wheat-exports-country/

[2] https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-minin...

[3] https://fortune.com/2022/03/08/eu-russian-gas-supply-wean-bl...

During the Irish Potato Famine, Irish companies continued to export large quantities of food, which some have argued would have been sufficient to have turned the widespread and deadly famine into little more than an economic hiccup.

The headline of this article is untrue, evidenced even by the article itself. The one quote they provide from Russia is, "These measures are a logical response to those imposed against Russia and are aimed at ensuring uninterrupted functioning of key sectors of the economy." And look at the industries where exports are being restricted: telecom, medical, auto, agricultural, electrical + tech.

Russia is ensuring they have sufficient domestic supplies such that the impact of the sanctions on people's day to day necessities is minimal.

I highly doubt that these measures will make it so that "the impact of the sanctions on people's day to day necessities is minimal."

For one thing, the stuff that they export will often not be a good match for needs, and it will be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Re-organizing their economy to adapt to the sanctions and achieve something like self sufficiency (with the help of Chinese trade) will be an enormous task.

“ Exporting telecom, medical, auto, agricultural, electrical and tech equipment, as well as some forestry products, will be banned until the end of 2022.”

I’ve purchased Baltic Birch plywood before that turned out to be manufactured in Russia. I’m not sure if that’s included under forestry product ban, but it would further impact pricing of sheet goods.

With that said, if Russia were to ban the export of specific metals (e.g. nickel), that would create chaos for auto manufacturers.

Neither Russia nor the West is stopping trade in everything. This action means Russia is taking the initiative so they can choose what trade is banned. Of course that’d be trade in something the West needs.

The way you posed the question implies that the West and Russia are in a employer-employee type relationship, with Russia being the subservient employee, where the boss can fire, replace, demote, etc, and them have little to no control over such events.

I think this is a poor analogy.

(For context: I despise this aggressive Russian government.)

IMO it's just beginning of RU retaliating on "sanctions" that are closer to blockade in reality - an act of war. When RU characterized the sanctions as economic warfare, I think they will treat it as such. This is initial retaliation in kind to highlight mutual economic vulnerabilities before severe methods like cyber attacks. If west wants to reduce RU economy to a grind, expect RU to escalate (dis)proportionally. At end of day RU will lose billions, west will lose trillions. It's still early days, but my feeling is RU has more leverage than people expect because west simply has magnitude more to lose once warfare expands to other domains.

Anyone know what impact these two items from the article would have on western companies?

allowing Russian airlines to register jets leased from Western firms as their own property

In response, a government commission on Wednesday approved the first step towards nationalising assets of foreign firms that leave the country.

It seems to me the companies involved probably knew this was possible/probable when they pulled out but I don't know enough about all of this to understand how much value they lose when their capital in a country is simply taken from them outright...

I imagine global companies' Russian assets are a minimal overall percentage of their property. And I suppose something companies should assume is a risk when they do business under a dictator.

But I also think it's really interesting from a burned bridges standpoint: It's going to be super hard to get companies to come back or resume doing business with Russia ever again.

Though what's the value of an unsupported modern jetliner?

More to the point, as soon as that aircraft lands at an airport outside Russia (or, perhaps, China), a nice young person with a briefcase will be explaining to the FBO that the aircraft is the property of Foobar Leasing, and should not be refueled while the repossession process is under way.

They're not flying outside Russia or China. Problem solved.

They will start falling apart sooner or later anyway.

I think it would depend on how safety conscious you are.

They can be sold for building material.

https://www.pinterest.com/roberthathaway9/airplane-houses/

Won’t they get grounded the moment they touch down in controlled airspace? They can probably skirt that for a while but eventually the engines need refurbishment, and that likely requires OEM parts.

And of course any time you have to divert due to a flight emergency you lose that plane.

It looks like a pure retaliation - to make western leasing companies to suffer losses. What to do with the planes I think no-one thinks at this stage. They may use them for scrap metal if will not find a better use.

An aviation youtube channel speculated about this posibility a few days ago: https://youtu.be/Lz4gCE4ccRM

In short more than half of all the russian operated airliners are leased from foreign companies. These leases are rummored to have stipulations that in case of a sanction the leased aircraft needs to be returned. It was already speculated that the Russian state won’t be letting that to happen.

These airlines will only be flying east…

This is good for Russia in the short term, but is going to be soo bad for Russia in the long term. Even once the sanctions end, business/capital will fear going into Russia for decades. Everyone in Russia is going to be poorer for the rest of their lives because of what's happening in Ukraine.

"Dublin-based AerCap, the world’s largest aircraft leasing company, is the most exposed to the crisis, with 152 aircraft in Russia and Ukraine valued at €2.1 billion, representing less than 5 per cent of its fleet value."

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/russian-state-airlines-n...

Seized foreign assets are often used for recompense in such situations. It can take a while to work through the courts, though.

There's a model for applying sanctions to Russia, the 2012 sanctions on Iran. As long as buyers were reducing their oil imports over the prior 6 months, they could buy. The money is put into an escrow account owned by the sanctioned country. If the conditions for lifting sanctions are met, there's a pay day. The regime doesn't get money to fund war, the market avoids a price spike. Iran went along with it, I'm not sure how much choice they had. Whereas Russia could just say no, especially if China and/or India buys the overage (if they can get it there in volume). That's why there would need to be secondary sanctions.

https://twitter.com/edwardfishman/status/1500496727526281220

" a government commission on Wednesday approved the first step towards nationalising assets of foreign firms that leave the country."

I guess smash everything before u leave?

Western sanctions = Russia cannot spend money on western products

Russian sanctions = Russia does not get any money from other countries

That is good, right?

Brazil, China and other trading partners have not signed onto any or all of the sanctions. The sanctions are still hurting the Russian people, but there haven't been signs yet that it has hurt the government.

I am pretty sure that the government loudly objecting to them, going so far as to call them an act of war, is a sign that they are hurting the government.

We're yet too see how much.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/05/defiant-putin-...

Putin fits into the "strong man" stereotype. The mere intent behind the sanctions is sufficient to warrant such a response from him and those under him.

That said, it is certainly possible- time will tell either way.

A correction Russian sanctions = Russia doesn't get any money from selling to western countries

I can't find data to support my speculation but I'll share it anyway:

1. The things the west has banned importation from Russia, and the things that Russia is banning exportation of, may not be the same. Therefore, Russia may cause pain by blocking the export of some things that were previously available.

2. The West previously controlled when the end of this trade blockage happens. Now Russia also controls this and the timing - what was previously a boolean is now an AND.

Russia was always in control of when this ends. They can simply leave Ukraine.

So, if Russia leaves Ukraine now, all the sanctions will be dropped? :)

The dropping of the sanctions should be tied to the paying of the war damages.

After they pay the bill for the damage they caused, yes I’d expect they would be dropped. I don’t think they will leave or pay the bill so we won’t get to check that guess anyone time soon. I also agree with the, can I call it cynicism? that this was a unilateral action with no intention of reversal.

That’s the point of sanctions. It should be painful to wage war and pleasurable to peacefully trade. Free trade with Russia is a deterrent.

Even if they did that and all sanctions immediately ended (which is doubtful), it would take a long time to undo the effects of those sanctions (investor confidence getting rebuilt, the memories of foreign-owned civil aircraft getting expropriated to fade etc).

Invading Ukraine was Russia’s decision. Russia controls when that rebuilding starts.

It's not obvious that the sanctions end when Russia leaves Ukraine.

No mention of Uranium.

If every country refused to trade with Russia, would it become one of the poorest countries in the world?

This isn't what is happening nor what will happen, so why ask?

Trade is two-sided and every participant is richer as a result. So, if trade doesn't happen, both sides become poorer as a result.

If I refuse to trade with the world, the world becomes infinitesimally poorer, but I become radically poorer. Russia is relatively small compared to the global economy and will suffer much more than everyone else.

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