A great article; many thanks for writing it. I'm not sure, however, that any Western politician actually believed sanctions would have any effect. Sanctions have never prevented violence anywhere at any time in history. Instead, it's important to understand that Western politicians try to look for a path between spineless cowardice (not a great look, and may lead to lost votes) and the illusion (but not the dangerous reality) of "doing something." And so sanctions meet this requirement: foolish journalists have something to sensationalize for a few days, which enables them to generate revenues (very important) and ordinary people are ignorant and silly enough to think "something is being done" but not anything that could risk their ability to eat more junk food and watch more streaming video in perfect safety and comfort.

It's difficult to believe how short-sighted and foolish Western politicians are, but after nearly 80 years of peace we've reached the point where we elect clowns, halfwits, blowhards, and imbeciles who are completely incapable of dealing with serious challenges like Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Mostly they hope that if they make a few windy speeches the problem will eventually go away, or at least journalists will move on to the next sensation and ordinary people will forget and so life can continue in the West undisturbed even if in Ukraine, and elsewhere, horrors are happening every day.

Russia may be lost, but we in the West are ensuring that this loss will occur for us too, in the not-too-distant future. After all, the US is about to put the creature Trump (or someone equally vile and damaging) back into the White House and the Republican Party is barely less fascist than the creatures who populate the Russian Duma...