If Russia can’t get its hands on vital parts for their military then they’ve already lost this war. With morale being low, recruits being called and handed WW2 guns it’s only a matter of time. I think the US politicians in charge understands that Russians generally doesn’t deal with military losses very well. In the past, military losses in Russia was followed by the guy in power being overthrown by other internal strife at home, smiler to Nicholas the Czar, and then the collapse of the Soviet after Afghan.
I generally agree that sanctions do not topple governments, at least not immediately and directly. The sanctions we’ve placed on Russia has weakened their military effectiveness, how long Putin can drag this on is anyone’s guess. But I invite any Russian going into Ukraine with minimal gear against a well armed Ukrainian army. By the end of the war, the Russian military will be tremendously weakened, and shamed. This makes one less enemy that Europe/NATO has to fear, unless a crazy guy with small hands gets into power after Putin and decides to to prove a point with Nukes.
Aside from weakening their military, these sanctions are making Russians poorer, with less taxes to collect Russian won’t have as much to rebuild its military might, R&D will be scaled back, raises for government employees will need to cease, etc. anyone who thinks sanctions are meant to topple the Russian government needs to re-listen to President Biden’s speech:
Today, I’m authorizing additional strong sanctions and new limitations on what can be exported to Russia.
This is going to impose severe costs on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time.
We have purposefully designed these sanctions to maximize the long-term impact on Russia and to minimize the impact on the United States and our Allies.
And I want to be clear: The United States is not doing this alone. For months, we’ve been building a coalition of partners representing well more than half of the global economy.
Twenty-seven members of the European Union, including France, Germany, Italy — as well as the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and many others — to amplify the joint impact of our response.
I just spoke with the G7 leaders this morning, and we are in full and total agreement. We will limit Russia’s ability to do business in Dollars, Euros, Pounds, and Yen to be part of the global economy. We will limit their ability to do that. We are going to stunt the ability to finance and grow Rus- — the Russian military.
We’re going to impose major — and we’re going to impair their ability to compete in a high-tech 21st century economy.
We’ve already seen the impact of our actions on Russia’s currency, the Ruble, which early today hit its weakest level ever — ever in history. And the Russian stock market plunged today. The Russian government’s borrowing rate spiked by over 15 percent.
In today’s actions, we have now sanctioned Russian banks that together hold around $1 trillion in assets.
We’ve cut off Russia’s largest bank — a bank that holds more than one third of Russia’s banking assets by itself — cut it off from the U.S. financial system.
And today, we’re also blocking four more major banks. That means every asset they have in America will be frozen. This includes V.T.B., the second-largest bank in Russia, which has $250 billion in assets.
As promised, we’re also adding names to the list of Russian elites and their family members that are sanctioning — that we’re sanctioning as well.
As I said on Tuesday, these are people who personally gain from the Kremlin’s policies and they should share in the pain. We will keep up this drumbeat of those designations against corrupt billionaires in the days ahead.
On Tuesday, we stopped the Russian government from raising money from U.S. or European investors.
Now, we’re going to apply the same restrictions to Russia’s largest state-owned enterprises — companies with assets that exceed $1.4 trillion.
Some of the most powerful impacts of our actions will come over time as we squeeze Russia’s access to finance and technology for strategic sectors of its economy and degrade its industrial capacity for years to come.
Between our actions and those of our Allies and partners, we estimate that we’ll cut off more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports.
It will strike a blow to their ability to continue to modernize their military. It’ll degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program. It will hurt their ability to build ships, reducing their ability to compete economically. And it will be a major hit to Putin’s long-term strategic ambitions.
And we’re preparing to do more. In addition to the economic penalties we’re imposing, we’re also taking steps to defend our NATO Allies, particularly in the east.
It’s been weeks since Biden made this speech, with hindsight, can we that the sanctions purpose has been working to do exactly what it’s designed to do? Biden makes no mention of toppling any government, but the severity of these sanctions is working, it’s stalling the Russian military complex, and it will hurt them for years to come.