On April 6, Emma Ashford was interviewed on DW about Russia’s war against Ukraine and the potential implications of cutting off Russian oil and gas imports to Europe.
“These sanctions were initially intended as a deterrent. The Biden administration said to Russia, ‘If you invade Ukraine, we will slap the sanctions on you,’ in the hopes that would deter the Russians from invading. That obviously didn’t work.
“So now the sanctions are in place, at least in theory they are supposed to be putting pressure on the Russian government to end the war. That doesn’t appear to be happening so far. And it’s not clear whether even more sanctions would necessarily do that.”
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