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I can't find data to support my speculation but I'll share it anyway: 1. The things the west has banned importation from Russia, and the things that Russia is
by late2part 5y ago
I can't find data to support my speculation but I'll share it anyway:
1. The things the west has banned importation from Russia, and the things that Russia is banning exportation of, may not be the same. Therefore, Russia may cause pain by blocking the export of some things that were previously available.
2. The West previously controlled when the end of this trade blockage happens. Now Russia also controls this and the timing - what was previously a boolean is now an AND.
- mulmen 5y agoRussia was always in control of when this ends. They can simply leave Ukraine.
- ComradePhil 5y ago
- macintux 5y agoRussia has multiple motivations for this. NATO is just a convenient excuse.
- K5EiS 5y agoDo you honestly think Russia will leave Ukraine if NATO says it won't expand? Expand is a stupid word, nobody is forcing Ukraine to join the defensive alliance.
- avtolik 5y agoYeah, but no. NATO is just an excuse. Putin has said numerous times that the fall of the USSR was a mistake and Ukraine belongs inside.
- jquery 5y agoUkrainians have the right to self-determination. Anyway it doesn’t matter, Putin is empire building, he made that very clear in his speech before the invasion. NATO is just an excuse to give his war of aggression the thinnest veneer of legitimacy to Russians who eat the daily Kremlin propaganda.
- vasergen 5y agoWhy do you think this war is about NATO expansion? Even though Ukraine drifted to NATO, NATO would never take Ukraine as a member having conflict wit Russia in east of Ukraine and with Crimea being anexated.
- ComradePhil 5y agoWould you be more open if I told you that Bernie Sanders believes the same thing I said: https://youtu.be/o8BJ4FajZzg https://youtu.be/o8BJ4FajZzg There's a reason you only hear from him in the media when the party is trying to get people who could vote for someone else to be kept in the party.
- CRConrad 5y agoWell, Tovaritj Phil, even Tovaritj Bernie can be wrong some times.
- cmurf 5y agoAbsurd. Sovereign nations have the right to associate, or not, with other nations. And the Russian Federation is party to a treaty, the Budapest Memorandum, recognizing Ukraine's sovereignty and its 1994 borders, without restrictions what countries it can associate with or how. This is a textbook case of an aggressive war, the supreme international crime, as were the invasions of Georgia in 2009 and Ukraine in 2014. There is a track record here, and Russia is party to the U.N. charter, and yet it has directly violated Articles 1, 2, 33, and 39. Russia already has been given security guarantees which it is a party to. But Putin has just torn up all the prior relevant important agreements. Why bother with yet another agreement he'd presumably just reneg on? And now Finland, Sweden, Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine are looking to either join NATO or the EU as a result of Putin's actions. On what basis should they be refused when it is Russia who just started a war of aggression for the first time since WW2? The Putin regime cannot be trusted. https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/russias-ex-foreign-minister-on-his-totalitarian-country/ https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/russias-ex-foreign-ministe...
- mulmen 5y agoNATO is a defensive pact, not an empire. It was created to protect against expansion by Russia. Russia just invaded a neighbor. Seems like a great case for NATO to expand.
- Demiurge 5y agoSo, if Russia leaves Ukraine now, all the sanctions will be dropped? :)
- bojan 5y agoThe dropping of the sanctions should be tied to the paying of the war damages.
- codezero 5y agoAfter they pay the bill for the damage they caused, yes I’d expect they would be dropped. I don’t think they will leave or pay the bill so we won’t get to check that guess anyone time soon. I also agree with the, can I call it cynicism? that this was a unilateral action with no intention of reversal.
- mulmen 5y agoThat’s the point of sanctions. It should be painful to wage war and pleasurable to peacefully trade. Free trade with Russia is a deterrent.
- aix1 5y agoEven if they did that and all sanctions immediately ended (which is doubtful), it would take a long time to undo the effects of those sanctions (investor confidence getting rebuilt, the memories of foreign-owned civil aircraft getting expropriated to fade etc).
- mulmen 5y agoInvading Ukraine was Russia’s decision. Russia controls when that rebuilding starts.
- late2part 5y agoIt's not obvious that the sanctions end when Russia leaves Ukraine.