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Comment by f6v | Hacker News Reader

The sanctions didn’t fail. They probably complicated the oil transport logistics a lot. There’s been stories of how uninsured Russian tankers offload oil bear Gibraltar. Then the oil goes somewhere in China(or India). I suppose it’s going to find its way back to Europe as “Indian diesel”.

So, exactly as you describe. But all of this should add costs even if the crude oil prices are at the proposed ceiling.

Who lost? Russia and the EU. But who said that wasn’t the plan.

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It's been a year, where is this collapse of the Russian economy? It looks like they're doing just fine and can continue to wage war near indefinitely. What are the sanctions even doing at this point??

The sanctions were supposed to sever the ties between Russia and the EU. That worked perfectly. Same as the refugee crisis. The two most active supporters of Ukraine(USA and UK) take almost no refugees from Ukraine. It’s the EU that suffers from having to support them.

What? The US has taken an enormous amount of Ukraine refugees: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/us-admits-27100...

271,000! That's over double their goal of 100k! They explicitly got rid of refugee restrictions put in place at the start of the pandemic so they could let in Ukraine refugees.

Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia combined took twice more than that. 271k is nothing for US given their role in the conflict.

Those countries are next door to Ukraine, a refugee can literally walk to them vs. someone paying for a plane flight to the US. Of course neighboring countries will have more refugees...

A refugee can pay literally 200 EUR and fly to US from Warsaw. I assure you many paid up to two orders of magnitude more just to flee the county.

It’s about the local laws put in place. The EU takes refugees with almost no preconditions. Maybe that’s why the EU leaders try to come up with a peace plan once in a while, unlike UK or US.

"given their role in the conflict" is pretty ambiguous, if you're referring to russia's war on, and latest genocide of, Ukraine

could you elaborate on what role you're speaking of, and why you personally think it makes the admittances below your standards?

Go bait somewhere else, mate. Your question has nothing to do with the topic we’re discussing.

your post would be a good response to yourself mate, as your opinion of the US's "role in the conflict" has nothing to do with the topic we're discussing and seems to be bait

You’re free to just walk past by. Nobody forced you to respond.

that seems like it would be a good response to this post you made after yourself baiting and deflecting from the topic we were discussing, mate:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643805

The Russian economy absolutely cratered when sanctions were rolled out. What are you talking about?

https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/stock-market

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/impact-sanct...

Russia has bounced back and are continuing to wage war just fine despite the sanctions. What is the point of them now?

I don't think Russia has "bounced back." And coloring their war-making ability as "just fine" erases all differentiation in cost and effectiveness caused by sanctions.

> What is the point of them now?

I mean, I think they still impose cost and hinder Russia's war-making ability. So it's good to keep them if you like that impact?

You have also moved the goalposts some from upthread[1]:

> The sanctions have failed to do anything.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35628560

Sanctions are greatly increasing the cost of the war to Russia, and reducing their industrial capacity to wage it. Their rate of shelling as been falling steadily, and they are losing armoured vehicles at twice their replacement rate. Their spring offensive was so futile there was actually a lot of confusion about whether they actually launched it yet. They had, and it got massacred.

Easing sanctions would greatly increase the rate at which they could produce military equipment, particularly high tech guided munitions. That would equal more dead Ukrainians.

>just fine

Whaaa? Russia is sending T-55s to their front to deal with massive material losses. The losses are closer to the numbers we'd expect in WWII, not a local border war where they are the attacker.

You are watching Putin fight to keep alive (note, not keep Russia alive) at this point. Bakmut will go down in history has Putin's mad king moment.

Russia has $75T in known resource reserves. The US is second at $45T.

Do you really think Russia can't afford to insure oil tankers if the West refuses to do it?

It's not about "afford" (insurance is, after all, a profit-generating business), it's about being able to.

They have the resources to make their own insurance company.

The question is, will this company be recognized by all required players (ports, authorities etc.). If you're insuring something worth hundreds of millions of dollars, you really want the insurance company to meet certain standards, and have a good reputation of paying out. Can Russian achieve that? Probably. Can they do it quickly? That sounds much trickier.

If Russia doesn't back its insurance it loses credibility around the world.

Russia is a major player in the oil world. It has the relationships and experience to manage this.

Russia is massively underdeveloped. It would take a few trillion dollars in funding just to extract a relatively small fraction of those known resources. They are also massively under populated. They do not have the financial nor the human capital to even extract a 1/10th of that wealth in their current state.

China had invested a lot in Russia in the Belt and Roads initiative to extract natural resources, and it is looking like Russia will default on those loans.

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