Unintended Consequences of Sanctions
Everyone by now has heard about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
These acts by Putin and the Russian government have prompted a swift response from the rest of the world.
The consensus is pretty clear. It’s Russia against the world. There is major pushback against the war and it seems like there is nothing the world won’t do to stop Russia. Even if that means doing more harm than good.
Sanctions
Many sanctions have been imposed on Russia due to their government’s unfriendly actions in foreign affairs.
These sanctions are meant to be punishments for the government for not abiding by the sanctioning party’s way of life. Sanctions are imposed as a financial burden for not only economic reasons but for social and political issues as well. It is clear why sanctions were imposed on Russia.
Some of the sanctions include:
These are just a few of the sanctions some governments and other industries have imposed on Russia, and if they keep their act up more will follow.
But who are these sanctions really affecting?
These sanctions and concerns about the war have caused millions of innocent Russian civilians to rush to the banks to take out cash, to the point where there isn’t enough to go around.
The concern about the sanctions and everyone taking out cash has led to the value of the Ruble decreasing dramatically. So not only can Russians not take their cash out of the bank, due to the Visa and Mastercard sanctions, they can’t even use their card. The icing on the cake is that even if they were able to take out cash or use their card, their money is worth a fraction of what it was worth a few months ago.
Like many countries, the citizens rely on imported goods for survival and well-being. With the value ruble being worth scraps the cost of imported goods has now skyrocketed. That is if they are allowed to purchase goods from another country.
And we are concerned about $4/gallon gas in the US. I’m not a fan of it either but take a different perspective. We think we are righteous people putting the Ukrainian flag in our social media bio, helping Ukraine, saving innocent lives with these sanctions. No. You are hurting millions of other people’s lives, they just happen to be living in the wrong country.
Unintended Consequences
Maybe intentional, maybe not. But these sanctions placed on Russia not only hurt the government (the reason for the sanction) but significantly hurts the innocent civilians even more.
There are 144 million people living in Russia. Let’s say, for instance, 25% of the population does not support the war. I believe this to be a very conservative estimate. That’s roughly 35 million people, who do not support what their own government is doing. I find it very hard to believe that the number isn’t greater.
That means 35 million people in Russia right now are suffering from a crashing economy, a worthless Ruble, no access to cash, no way to spend the money in their bank account, and no way out of the country. And these are the people that are on the same side as the ones putting the sanctions in place.
Many are concerned about innocent lives in Ukraine. Yes, it is very heartbreaking that innocent people, even children, are dying because of the invasion of the Russian government.
But now, because of the sanctions, there are many more victims. Innocent Russian civilians are hurt because of disapproval of what their government is doing. As if these people had some sort of control of what their government decided to do. How foolish.
I’m not a foreign affairs expert. I’m not going to give you a solution and act as if I know how to fix the situation. All I am claiming is that the world is willing to hurt more innocent people to stop the war Russia has started, all because Russia winning the war is not beneficial to them.