Russia's Aggressive Invasion Leads To Tough Sanctions

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Latest Developments In Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Russia officially invaded Ukraine and they did it exactly as the Biden administration said they would. President Biden had said the Russians would fabricate some kind of reason and argue that their people or posts were being threatened to justify an invasion and that's basically how things went down. First, President Putin ordered his troops into the eastern part of Ukraine into two areas that have been under the control of Russian-backed rebels since 2014. And he claimed his troops were going in as peacekeepers. So the United States and Europe moved fast to impose tough sanctions, including sanctioning two major Russian state-owned banks, a number of wealthy Russian oligarchs, Russia's sovereign debt, which means that the U.S Persons can't buy their government bonds, and they sanctioned the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany, which Russia would have made billions off of. So Russia will feel the financial pain from these. But are they enough to change Putin's mind? Clearly not. Last Wednesday night, President Putin launched an attack on Ukraine that included airstrikes against its military outposts and equipment across the country. And now his troops have invaded from nearly every side of the country. So President Biden responded on Thursday with even more really tough sanctions and some military maneuvers to beef up security in NATO countries.

Sanctions and Broader Strategy

As a response to an all-out war, the message Putin hears when we respond to his attack with admittedly tough sanctions is this is the main weapon we're willing to use. As a rule, sanctions are not a silver bullet and they're not meant to be, they're supposed to be part of a broader strategy. And all the elements of that strategy is what's supposed to change Putin's mind. Is this strategy going to stop Putin? No, at least not now. Putin knows this strategy and he went ahead anyway. And that's because there are only two things that will make Putin change his mind. First, a serious military threat, and second, getting something related to his demands on NATO's expansion or regarding US and NATO military equipment in the region. What sanctions will do is make Russia an international pariah. They'll get at the Kremlin's financial networks, will create bargaining chips for future negotiations, and they'll work to financially undermine Russia's military to prevent it from pursuing similar aggression elsewhere, like in Georgia or Estonia or any other former soviet country. There are two major concerns right now. First, it doesn't look good for Ukraine, but I hope that the military assistance they've received and will continue to receive helped them to push back on Russia. But don’t expect the US to enter into a war with Russia. There are a few reasons for that. First, because two superpowers going to war would be absolutely catastrophic. So it sounds backwards, but by not militarily engaging Russia, the US is containing the conflict. Second, no one in the US wants our troops to go to another war. We're all war’d out and so is president Biden. He views intervention as a last resort. Third, because Ukraine is not part of NATO and so the US is not required to defend Ukraine. Putin knows all this which gets me to the next thing that scares me. It's 2022 and an authoritarian leader just invaded and attacked his neighbor. How will every other authoritarian leader view this? Like Chinese President Xi is watching this scenario unfold super closely to see how people will react if he were to invade Taiwan.

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