When spring arrives in Russia, parks and cafes fill with happy people.

The same was true this year: Muscovites report that there is hardly any sign of the war.

Shops and restaurants are full, the ruble is as strong as it was before the pandemic began.

So are the sanctions not working at all?

Some measures were actually overestimated.

The Swift exclusion of Russian banks has been pompously talked about as a "nuclear measure".

Now the largest institutes are affected, but the Russian financial system has not collapsed.

International business was limited even before the war, and other channels for transactions exist in a pinch.

There are also exceptions: Gazprombank, for example, which Europe needs to pay for gas transactions, is left out.

Other sanctions, on the other hand, were surprisingly harsh and comprehensive;

thus freezing half of central bank reserves.

The much-vaunted “Fortress Russia”, which has been accumulating gold and currency reserves since 2014 in order to prepare for new punitive measures, had not kept its reserves safe from Western access.

But now the central bank has found other ways to support the ruble: capital controls prevent Russians from taking money abroad.

Exporters are being forced to convert large parts of their dollar earnings into rubles.

At the same time, imports collapsed, in April an estimated 70 to 80 percent year-on-year (precise data have not been published since March), while oil and gas prices have risen sharply.

Therefore, a high current account surplus also supports the Russian currency.

This has led some experts to believe that the sanctions are even helping to finance Vladimir Putin's war of aggression.

The serious crisis is yet to come

The core of this accusation is that the West has not yet been able to impose truly "nuclear" sanctions, namely an oil and gas embargo.

It is true that more than $20 billion has flowed from the EU to Russia each month since the war broke out.

But an oil embargo could cause the oil price to rise further: Russia would then have no problem finding new customers in Asia.

And a gas embargo that would be most effective in the short term, given the difficulty of diverting supply structures that rely on pipelines, is too risky for the EU to implement quickly.

Even if the Kremlin has enough money to continue its war despite or even because of the sanctions, it was right to isolate the country economically as quickly as possible.

The measures imposed so far and the voluntary departure of many companies will plunge Russia into a severe crisis that has been compared to the collapse of the financial system in 1998.

Signs of decline have long been there: the number of personal bankruptcies is increasing drastically;

industrial production, such as that of cars, has collapsed.

However, the full effect of the sanctions has yet to unfold.

In aviation, for example, as in Iran, a number of planes will have to remain on the ground to store spare parts.

That companies like Halliburton and Schlumberger, which supply key oil production equipment, want to sell their businesses in Russia is devastating news for this sector - regardless of what the planned departure from Europe means for it.

And the war-accelerated departure of young, well-educated Russians, especially from the very promising IT sector, is a catastrophe for the future of the economy.

It will still take a while before these changes reach the people in the country - many companies have stockpiled spare parts that they are currently installing.

After the summer, however, unemployment is likely to rise significantly.

If more and more Russians then have to sell their Lada and take out loans to pay for their buckwheat, support for the war, which is still strong, could wane.

Dissatisfaction with life, which has been deteriorating for years, which was palpable long before the "special operation", will grow again and the Kremlin will be forced to stun him with gifts of money.

A dissatisfied people will not stop Putin in his madness, but will at least disturb him.

To do this, the West must consistently continue its policy of sanctions.

Even if the moment comes when some would prefer to ignore the war - as many Russians are already doing.