Sanctions are working as well as they can be. Russia is big enough that they can live in complete autarchy if they really want to (hell, Iran’s been doing it for decades). But they are under immense internal strain, which does affect domestic politics and military decisions.
What we can concretely do though is keep supplying weapons, humanitarian aid, and military training to Ukraine. Supply more, even. They are fighting a war of attrition, that will last for years until Russia yields (unless drastic political change happens within Russia before then, but it’s nothing to bet on). But if Western support doesn’t waver, Ukraine can win this war through the sheer industrial strength of EU/NATO grinding down Russia’s ability and willingness to fight a pointless foreign war - kinda like the USSR-backed Vietnam did to the US.
Russia’s only hope, and main foreign policy objective, is for Western support of Ukraine to stop, which is why you see every far-right Putin-loving and Russian-paid politician out there saying that sending money to Ukraine is “pointless”.
They are fighting a war of attrition, that will last for years until Russia yields
You are forgetting next year’s US elections, unfortunately. But if that doesn’t go the wrong way, the Vietnam scenario is indeed somewhat realistic, with the difference that Ukraine is a lot closer to Russia than Vietnam was to the US
Sanctions are working as well as they can be. Russia is big enough that they can live in complete autarchy if they really want to (hell, Iran’s been doing it for decades). But they are under immense internal strain, which does affect domestic politics and military decisions.
What we can concretely do though is keep supplying weapons, humanitarian aid, and military training to Ukraine. Supply more, even. They are fighting a war of attrition, that will last for years until Russia yields (unless drastic political change happens within Russia before then, but it’s nothing to bet on). But if Western support doesn’t waver, Ukraine can win this war through the sheer industrial strength of EU/NATO grinding down Russia’s ability and willingness to fight a pointless foreign war - kinda like the USSR-backed Vietnam did to the US.
Russia’s only hope, and main foreign policy objective, is for Western support of Ukraine to stop, which is why you see every far-right Putin-loving and Russian-paid politician out there saying that sending money to Ukraine is “pointless”.
You are forgetting next year’s US elections, unfortunately. But if that doesn’t go the wrong way, the Vietnam scenario is indeed somewhat realistic, with the difference that Ukraine is a lot closer to Russia than Vietnam was to the US