It was obvious in advance that the countries of the collective West would impose sanctions in response to Russia's recognition of the DPR and LPR.
If the administration and the US Congress for a long time and for any reason, as well as for no reason, formidably proclaim: “Get, fascist, a grenade from the pioneer Petya!”
and shy away with sanctions, then the recognition of the DPR-LPR obviously implied new sanctions.
which were announced.
But the problem is that if sanctions are kept within certain limits and are not completely deadly (as, for example, a dead siege of a recalcitrant city, which is also a sanction), then they get used to them, like bad weather.
This is unpleasant, it increases transaction costs, but people live under sanctions.
“Words, down to the most important thing, become a habit,” sanctions too.
Linguists have the concept of a “worn penny” - when a word blurred by frequent use no longer produces its former amazing effect.
See, for example, the devaluation of foul language.
And since the list of objects for punishment is limited, this leads to the fact that some individuals and legal entities are twice, thrice and even four times sanctioned.
It is possible, of course, to reveal the victorious power of democracy in all its horror, by tightly caulking audacious Russia, but then a la ger com a la ger.
A country with nothing to lose is unlikely to respect the right to intellectual property, which brings huge profits to the West (take medicine, for example).
When possible answers are kept in mind, Western sanctions look rather toothless.
But lately, even the original meaning of the sanctions, which consists in limiting or even completely stopping relations with those who want to be punished, has been lost.
After all, in order to hurt someone with sanctions, it is necessary that some kind of communication first took place.
Whereas in the US sanctions against the “so-called DNR and LNR”, this initial premise is either absent or extremely insignificant.
Meanwhile, Biden's executive order "prohibits new investments by US individuals and entities in the so-called DPR and LPR or other similar regions of Ukraine, which may be determined by the [US] Secretary of the Treasury in agreement with the Secretary of State", introduces a ban on "importation into the United States directly or indirectly any goods, services or technologies from these regions" and "export, re-export, sale or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States or by any person from the United States, wherever located, of any goods, services or technologies” in the DNR and LNR.
Plus personal sanctions, including freezing assets in the United States.
Everything is very harsh, but it is permissible to ask: before February 22, the DPR-LPR were inundated with American investments?
And what of the goods produced in the Donbass were widely exported (and in what ways) to the United States?
Coal?
Products of the metallurgical industry?
Machine tools and locomotives?
Finally, one can have different opinions about Pasechnik and Pushilin and their entourage, but do they really have a presence in Miami, where they spend a considerable part of their time next to Kristina Orbakaite and Valery Leontiev?
And how much money do they keep in American banks?
The standard list of punitive measures written off from the guidelines would make some sense if the DPR-LPR were an economic appendage of the United States (like Cuba in the early 1960s), and their leadership was bought and repurchased by American everyday goods.
If this is not the case, then it will be something like hellish sanctions against the Zubtsovsky district of the Tver region.
Partly unpleasant, but generally causing strong doubts about the mental health of those printing such sanctions.
It is clear that when the administration of the President of the United States, like a horseshoe, forges a decree after a decree, and, moreover, at a frantic pace, it is no wonder to report.
But the cries of the Washington organ player “I will ruin!”
and "I won't stand it!"
doing weird things.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.