(Huffington Post/Berggruen Institute) Will Western sanctions against Russia work? It's not clear what that question means, since it isn't obvious what Russia has to do to end them. It doesn't seem very likely that Russia is going to withdraw from Crimea or end its support for rebels in eastern Ukraine.
But even more important is the question of how the sanctions are affecting Russia's domestic political scene. I suggested in early March, when sanctions had been threatened but not yet announced, that they might interfere with Russian President Vladimir Putin's ability to keep his domestic political networks in balance. Those with an internationalist bent would want Russian policy to change. Leading economists like former finance minister Alexei Kudrin have indeed sounded the alarm about Russia's current direction.
But I could not have predicted the specific direction that many of the sanctions took: singling out Putin's key political allies and their businesses for targeting, regardless of whether they are directly involved in Ukrainian events or have any substantial relationship with the West. The thinking seems to be that if the West names and shames Putin's cronies and puts some limited pressure on their business interests, this will convince Putin to change course. But it's not clear how this is supposed to work. […]
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