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Comment by shevy-java | Hacker News Reader

> Sanctions can and will work against Russia.

We hear this mantra since almost 5 years. I am not saying there should not be sanctions, but at some point the strategic lies need to end.

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Maybe you should update your epistemology and stop listening to the guys that said so; I listen to the experts who say (since 2022) sanctions hurt, but russia is like a big tree - even if you poison it, it won't fall on the next day; it doesn't help that russia has disproportionately big spy network - people will take more abuse before they rebel against their government.

I think shevy was pointing out that some experts have assured us since before the war that sanctions can and will cripple Russia any day now.

Their epistemology doesn't need updating; the politicians fibbing need to be ridiculed.

It is a known strawman argument. The sanctions weren't introduced because someone was convinced they will make Russia fail or what not, they were introduced because this was the only thing we could do barring military action that nobody was ready for. We knew they will have a negative impact on Russian economy but nobody was hoping for a miracle. Countries like Iran or North Korea were living under sanctions for years and they are much smaller. I haven't seen anybody arguing otherwise, barring YouTube clickbaity "Russia is falling" videos.

I don't think there are strategic lies here. Russia's war machine and their economy have taken a massive hit from sanctions. The news/media cycle and "experts" obviously want to make money and recycle the same stories and "any day now" kind of rhetoric, but that doesn't make sanctions any less of a great option.

It takes time.

It's also possible to run an economy on empty for a long, long time provided there's a war on. Look at Germany, who literally ran the country on empty throughout all of WWII, books like Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" cover this in great detail. There was a saying in the last few years, "enjoy the war, the peace will be terrible", and it was, because once you took the wartime tourniquet off all the toxins flooded your body. It wasn't until the Marshall Plan that the bare subsistence life was slowly eradicated.

Now, can you see anyone giving Putin's kleptocracy a few trillion dollars to rebuild Рашка? The Marshall Plan rebuilt Germany because the US realised that without that as the economic powerhouse of Europe the place would be a basket case in need of US support for decades, but when you're just a gas station masquerading as a country (McCain) no-one's going to bail you out except insofar as it keeps the gas flowing, and if you look at places like Nigeria you don't need much to keep the gas flowing.

> can you see anyone giving Putin's kleptocracy a few trillion dollars

Unfortunately, if the leaks are true, they might actually be discussing that.

"Fortunately" Putin is more bent on having the whole Donbas which Ukraine will not give so I don't believe this happens in the near future - which is bad for Russia as a country.

> Unfortunately, if the leaks are true, they might actually be discussing that.

Which specific leaks are discussing giving Putin a few trillion dollars? Who is the money coming from?

Russia has one of the biggest war chests in the world, huge reserves of carbon fuel that it can afford to sell under market rates, and is supported by China. It can sustain even hardest sanctions for a long while, lifting them certainly wouldn’t help.

> huge reserves of carbon fuel that it can afford to sell under market rates,

Under market rates sure, but it must still be profitable. China and India know that, so they're going to drive down the price to the extent they can so that it's just barely profitable. But you can't just profit from the oil and gas, you need to profit enough to buy fighter jets and tanks, and all sorts of other things.

When it’s your pretty much singular source of foreign income you have to make sacrifices.

Russia sells wheat too. Minerals too. Weapons. You will be surprised the oil part isnt at 100% as what western media is telling you. Plus this source is mostly based on what western finance can see. BRICS dont submit data to westrrn finance analysyst anymore since 3 years ago. Anything you want to buy stock or trade you must absolutely ignore western hypes. Incredibly unreliable.

Russia had been under sanctions since 2014 and in January of 2015 its economy was already "in tatters", as reported by Obama in the State of the Union that year. Then, in March of 2022, great Joe Biden proclaimed that he has turned "ruble into rubble". I am sure the 20 packages of sanctions since then destroyed anything that left and it's really just vacuum in place of Russian economy now... Why end the lies if you can call anyone pointing them out a Russian bot?

Any form of exaggeration is counter-productive. Russian economy is going slowly down, with the main cause being the war or Putin's need to fund it, and in a part also because of sanctions. But it can be low for decades, Russians will never go out on streets about it. But hopefully when Putin dies Russia returns to normal relations with the rest of the world and this bad epoch can end.

Saying the same thing without exaggerating doesn't make it true. Russian economy is growing, it's the rate of growth is going down. As for Russia returning to normal relations with the rest of the world: it's normal already. Russia cooperates with the majority of the world's population in China, India, Brazil etc.

Or, as Reshetnikov says, Russia's economy will continue to slow down in the first half of 2026. The prices will continue to increase, soldiers will continue to die in thousands. India announced they will not buy Russian oil, so the only major buyer will be China, driving the price even further down.

I have several friends in Russia, and I do wish them well, but it will be difficult to get back to normal as long as Putin is alive.

> India announced they will not buy Russian oil

I am not sure where did you get this, there is no such announcement publicly available.

> but it will be difficult to get back to normal as long as Putin is alive

There won't be a return to the 1990s-2000s subservient state, which you seem to be calling "normal". Whomever comes to replace Putin is going to be way more nationalist than the guy who spent more than half of his life in the USSR, being a Party member, and working in the field of internationalist politics.

> 1990s-2000s subservient state, which you seem to be calling "normal".

No need to go that far, I visited Moscow a few times before 2014 and it was more or less fine. I'd say 2 decades behind the West but OK. What is now is a big mess with Russia being an international pariah. This is bad and also unfair to millions of people who don't care about imperialistic ambitions of Putin and just want to live their lives in peace.

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