Sanctions are a patronizing form of punishments that have hardly ever been effective and are hard to maintain over a long period of time. Take Iran, even when there is a huge international block working together against Iran, the people suffer yet the government continues but just in secret to develop their nuclear program. And if anything it spurred Iran's warlike actions in the region.

To do it because of Navalny would just be a out of a wish to punish, not out of knowledge it would actually change the situation. And is it the role of the West to dish out punishment?

Besides it would just be used by Putin to empower the internal story of the threat of the West & NATO.

Indeed, drain the country of anyone of value while enabling better lives for these people. Extend comfortable retirement plans to anyone responsible for maintaining Russian nuclear hardware to drain the institutional knowledge needed for maintenance and operations; use this information to prepare to disarm it. Russia’s nuclear arsenal is currently the only thing holding the world back from taking aggressive action. Defang the cobra.

I'm totally for it and I will support any Russian that leaves their home country to withdraw their support for the war in any way I can - and have already done so, so this is not just words.

It would be a grand and very effective move if done in a major way.

Half-done it could be very dangerous - getting many well-connected and affluent people with nothing against in principle to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but who don't like the practical consequences for themselves.

>Like accepting Russian refugees, lots of them

Russians tried to do that. Got labeled murders and told in words and actions to 'get back to their shithole' or outright to just die.

Quite surprising, that wasn't viewed favourably by other Russians.

Meanwhile, some Russian emigres are actually returning because the sanctions, and general public distrust, are making life quite hard for them in the West.

As a Russian emigre myself, I can say that when you are calling for sanctions, you're calling for people like me to get screwed. Putin and his cronies don't seem too much damaged, on the other hand.

US is actually quite good on offering entry to refugees from Russia. At least 30,000 people from Russia entered US through Mexico and requested asylum in US and many got it. The problem is that it's only option for basically rich citizens of Russia because whole process is expensive, hard and quite dangerous.

EU is much closer, but it does nothing. Putins regime could've lost 30-50% of it's high-skilled workforce if EU or UK just made it easier to immigrate. E.g literally 100,000s of Russian IT workforce left due to war and political situation, but getting actual work visas is hard process and outside of country of citizenship it's only gets harder if not impossible.

But honestly west can't even help Ukraine efficiently. How can one expect EU to actually do anything to cripple Russia economy...

And a tourist visa is hard to get even with a residence permit. The consuls (rightly) see you as an immigration hazard. After all, you've already moved countries one time, who's to say you won't repeat the trick?

Meanwhile in Moscow, you have a good chance to get a 5-year visa from France.

Fun fact: the exact same phenomenon was being ridiculed by the White Russians, back in the 1920s. European countries were suspecting them of being Bolshevik, yet the actual Bolsheviks could come just fine.

Now, of course tourist visas are not really relevant for emigration, but it's an example of the attitude shown towards us.

The Geneva Convention (part IV) is pretty clear on this matter:

> Article 33 - Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage, reprisals

> No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

> Pillage is prohibited.

> Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.

De facto? Maybe. De jure? Still a war crime.

I did. Now you may argue that NATO and Russia are not in a state of war and therefore Russian citizens do not fall under the definition of a protected person given in article 4, but then you would be saying that it is alright to commit war crimes during peace times. Which seems kind of backwards to me.

I think you’ll find that even the neutral countries are providing support to Ukraine via the backdoor (eg Swiss with their armour going via DE).

I believe the strategy that the powers at be are attempting is to keep Russia occupied in Ukraine for as long as possible without major escalation. Without assigning morality, it seems like a tough balancing act to achieve.

> There are so called neutral countries that should not be neutral.

Why?

And Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Japan. Siemens CNC machines are making cruise missles instead of train parts.

Not so sure. I remember that pulling the plug on SWIFT was seen and talk about, as "the nuclear option" that no one thought would be used.

Exactly this. They're slow-walking this thing when they should be decisive. Kick Orban and Hungary out of the EU if they keep playing silly games, make a real stand and stay the course. This dumb half-assed stretching the line is going to end up in misery.

> When Russia invades Poland to create a land connection to Kaliningrad, just as they invaded Ukraine to create a land connection to Crimea, Europe will wish it had done 10x as much as it did.

If it invades Poland. Finland joining NATO makes such an invasion less likely, because (I'm told) that membership gives NATO enough logistics to encircle Kaliningrad without going through the Suwałki Gap, and this in turn changes Kaliningrad itself from an asset into a liability. No, I'm not sure why Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia were not already sufficient for this.

> Western countries could deliver planes, Germany could deliver Taurus cruise missles, countries could give submarines in the atlantic to target Russian oil rigs etc.

Yes, though I've heard convincing arguments that part of the current Russian strategy is to keep NATO sufficiently worried about escalation that they focus on building up their own forces instead of donating those same resources to Ukraine.

Why Poland instead of Lithuania?

I'd argue USSR collapse was a messy dissolution. A failure would be: Tatarstan declares independence, regular fighting in the streets of Moscow for months.

In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. The number one problem for SA is security. The state is fragile. Wahabi, Muslim Brotherhood, tribes that hate House of Saud. Secondly, Iran possess a direct threat, Houthi could destroy critical infrastructure. $$$$ spent on military doesn't help - they lost the war in Yemen.

SA is on a lookout for allies: Defence partnership with Pakistan which probably end up in a nuclear technology transfer or purchase of atomic weapons.

If USA would give better security guarantees to SA (similar to Jordan) with some tech transfer, SA would increase the output by 2x, which would result in $45 per barrel.

You can and should blame the Republicans. Congress isn’t the problem. Republicans are.

I'm not sure I understand, can you elaborate please?

A lot of things of "you cannot do" have already been proven to be false.

You can attack a country with nuclear weapons, provided you use only conventional ones, then threaten to escalate to nuclear if they do that. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate threat which would ensure mutual severe damage if not destruction if used, therefore nobody uses them first unless they're completely nuts, or they're cornered. Putin is a criminal but he's far from being crazy, and as for now is surely also far from being cornered. Surgical attacks in Russia with conventional weapons would undermine his powers and create enough public disapproval to facilitate a coup from within, but should be done with extreme care and up to a certain point in order not to trigger a nuclear response. Sadly, even using conventional weapons, the number of deaths would be huge; it is entirely possible that Putin would sacrifice millions of innocents sending them to the front line before giving up, also because when dictators give up they usually die shortly after.

Manpower is what Ukraine needs.

Maybe that's for the best.