These are still impotent sanctions. Only select Russian banks are excluded from SWIFT with many carveouts: oil, gas, wheat, fertilizer companies all excluded for example. Sanctions on Russian banks will go into effect in 30 days. The world, especially Europe, is still dependent on Russian natural resources.
Putin knows this. His enemies are weak and fighting runaway inflation. They do not have the appetite for war.
Putin will not tolerate having another enemy on his border. I presume he also expected for Ukrainians to capitulate faster. He has been demanding for Ukraine to remain Kremlin friendly or at least neutral since 2014.
As far as geopolitical YOLOs go, it was a decent bet. He took Crimea with little pushback, I presume he expected he could oust Zelenskyy swiftly or at least return Ukraine to a state of neutrality with little meaningful fallout from a weak West.
A video you should watch which elucidates why Putin is hostile towards a potential EU/NATO candidate being right at his doorstep:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
"If you want to wreck Russia what you should do is tell them to try and create a greater Russia. It will lead to no end of trouble. I think Putin is much too smart for that." - John Mearsheimer 2015
Wowza. That aged like milk. Really glad this guy didn't have a hand in our foreign policy. His apologist attitude towards autocrats is pretty gross too.
"I believe he is sowing divisions in The West that will manifest over time. If he is smart he will sit back and continue to pull levers as he has over the past year or so, and in the end ... he will get what he wants." - John Mearsheimer 2022
Yep. I didn't know who John Mearsheimer was an hour ago, now I actively dislike him. Pretty impressive how consistently he's been wrong about Putin and his intentions over the years.
(1) You're assuming Putin is trying to create a greater Russia. There is no evidence for that yet. Putin has been pounding the table about security guarantees. The Ukraine terrorism rhetoric seems mostly to gain popular support within Russia. In that video, Mearshiemer posits that Russia will level Ukraine in the process without intent to occupy it properly... what are we seeing now?
(2) The sanctions have tons of carveouts and are still toothless. We need more.
(1) I'm assuming nothing. In the context of the quote, Mearsheimer was directly stating the impossibility of an invasion of Ukraine by Russia. He has said as much on multiple occasions since. He was wrong. Period. Much of his political theorizing around Russia goes out the window with that assumption. For example, The West arming Ukraine was inarguably correct at this point. Ukraine is using those weapons to defend their sovereignty as we speak. Did that heighten tensions? I guess. Does blocking your face when someone punches you heighten tensions? I guess. Stating as much isn't exactly novel.
(2) Agreed. Keep an eye on Russian currency markets come Monday. Between removal from SWIFT and freezing central Russian bank assets, significantly painful sanctions are ramping up. The conflict has only been ongoing for 4 days.
"Putin again is much too smart to do that... what Putin is doing is he's basically in the process of wrecking Ukraine and he's telling the West in very simple terms you have two choices: you either back off and we go back to the status quo ante before February 22 2014 where Ukraine is a buffer state or you continue to play these games where you try and take Ukraine and make it a Western bastion on their doorstep in which case we'll wreck the country."
Well, for (1) there's that weird exchange where Russia's spy chief says/slips his (shaky) support about the entry of Donetsk and Luhansk to the Russian Federation before being corrected.
Putin knows this. His enemies are weak and fighting runaway inflation. They do not have the appetite for war.
Putin will not tolerate having another enemy on his border. I presume he also expected for Ukrainians to capitulate faster. He has been demanding for Ukraine to remain Kremlin friendly or at least neutral since 2014.
As far as geopolitical YOLOs go, it was a decent bet. He took Crimea with little pushback, I presume he expected he could oust Zelenskyy swiftly or at least return Ukraine to a state of neutrality with little meaningful fallout from a weak West.
A video you should watch which elucidates why Putin is hostile towards a potential EU/NATO candidate being right at his doorstep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4