[sschueller]

What are you talking about? Russia has effectively been blocked from the west while when the United States invaded Iraq nothing happened. Europe trades with the US like nothing ever happened while Russia will never return to what it was before without at minimum Putin being gone.

Europe even still trades with Israel when what they have done is Gaza has been declared a genocide by everyone. At the same time Russia can't even take part in the Olympics or the Eurovision song contest.

The west has no moral ground to stand on and hopefully people in the west will start to see that.

[throwaway2037]

You raise a lot of good points here. Another unconfortable truth: Russia is withstanding the sanctions way better than anyone expected. I don't think that they can sustain it forever, but I do think they can make it (at least) another 2-3 years.