As expected, the western sanctions left their mark on the Russian financial markets on Monday.
The national currency, the ruble, depreciated sharply against western currencies.
The dangers of a devaluation are all the greater the less the population trusts their own currency.
If the devaluation strengthens an existing distrust in the value of a currency, people can quickly try to flee their own currency into more valuable foreign currencies.
If these foreign currencies are only available to an insufficient extent as a result of the sanctions, the situation for the ruling regime can become uncomfortable.
Moscow therefore had every reason not to simply watch the fall in value of the ruble on the foreign exchange market.
But none of the interventions observed so far is without risks and side effects.
Drastic increases in key interest rates are not suitable for stabilizing exchange rates in the long term because they burden the economy over time.
In the banking crisis of 1992, the Swedish Riksbank even increased its key interest rate to 500 percent;
but of course she did not stick to this policy.
If a national currency remains permanently weak, the price level rises due to the increase in import prices.
This malaise explains other measures taken by Moscow, such as the ban on foreigners selling Russian securities for foreign currency.
The order for Russian companies to hand over a significant part of their foreign currency earnings to the state also indicates that the importance of the much-vaunted Russian currency reserves should not be overestimated, at the latest after the sanctions have been imposed.
Western hopes that the sanctions would have an effect on the Kremlin are countered in Moscow with the comment that the sanctions are having an effect, but not so much that Putin is very interested.
It may be that the sanctions will not prompt Putin to change his policy quickly.
But in the long run they are anything but ineffective.