Quote Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
Dayuhan--a good comment---the problem for the west is will the sanctions be enough of a short term threat vs definitely a long term threat weapon---no actually they could in fact destroy the Russian economy for years to come.
The sanctions themselves are a long term threat, but the elite's fear of sanctions is immediate. The motivator in this case is not so much what the existing sanctions have already done as what the economic elite thinks they will lose if further sanctions are applied. Those losses would take time to be realized, but the economic elite are not going to wait for that to happen to make their position known. They don't want to respond to losses, they want to prevent losses, and they will apply whatever pressure they can muster to achieve that goal. How much pressure they can muster is another question, but I'd guess there's a whole lot of talk going on behind the scenes right now.

Comes back to that same question: Putin can't afford to "lose" in the Eastern Ukraine, but can he afford to directly antagonize the business oligarchs?