The war against Russia is one western countries want to fight with only economic sanctions, not guns.
Russia’s conflict with Ukraine, despite its long gestation and planning by Vladimir Putin and his supporters in the Kremlin, was supposed to end quickly once financial retaliation began. Yes, there would be military skirmishes on the ground, but little more than a few casualties were expected once a range of penalties began to bite.
The western powers have quickly realised that unless they are willing to fire the financial equivalent of a nuclear arsenal, Putin has made sure Russia is largely immune, at least in the short term.
Over a decade, Kremlin policy has carefully reduced domestic public and private sector debt and allowed the central bank time to build a war chest of foreign assets large enough to shore up the country’s finances for months, if not years.
This means that the sanctions put in place over the past couple of days by the EU, US, UK, Japan and Canada are unlikely to have any significant effect on the Russian economy or its financial stability.
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