> Are you implying you can arrange for sanctions that would not have the population suffering from them Of course not. My point was that the elite will continu

> Are you implying you can arrange for sanctions that would not have the population suffering from them Of course not. My point was that the elite will continue to enjoy most of their privileges while common people will struggle to buy a loaf of bread, which is more or less what happens with sanctions. International laws prohibit any other type of intervention, so the change has to come from the inside, and in my opinion the only way to facilitate it is to use sanctions to push the difference between ruling and poor class to the extreme so that it could ignite public revolt. It stinks, badly, but that's how politics works. I don't think the Serbia example applies here, back then there was a war, and I recall one of my school teachers, who was from Friuli (north east Italy) just meters from the then Yugoslavia, telling the then 10 years old me in the mid 70s about the mutual hatred between various ethnic groups in the area, like they were just waiting for a chance to go at war against each other. In Belarus, unless I missed something (corrections welcome) there is "just" people against their corrupt decades old oppressive government.