China threw Russia an economic lifebelt after the West hit Moscow with sanctions over the war in Ukraine. As Putin prepares to visit Beijing this week to promote even closer ties, Washington is ramping up the pressure.
Days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the West foisted deep sanctions on Moscow in the hopes of hurting Russia’s ability to finance the conflict. The sanctions targeted politicians and oligarchs, froze foreign reserves, curbed access to Western technology and cut Russian banks off from the Swift international payment messaging system.
The financial penalties were widely expected to bring Russia to its knees. Initially, the ruble plummeted in value and the Russian economy contracted by 1.2% in 2022. Last year, however, Russia’s growth outpaced both the United States and Europe at 3.6%. The country is on course for another strong year in 2024.
Much of that growth came in the way of trade with China, which acted as a counterweight to the West by refusing to impose sanctions and becoming a major buyer of Russian energy. Despite pressure from the US and the European Union, the two countries have formed a deeper alliance since the war started.
The Western powers, but mostly Western Europe. The Baltic states and Poland were very wary of Russia and there multiple news articles of them fearing a Russian invasion (Lithuania 2017).
Gearing up NATO for a possible invasion to actually increase military spending for secure Baltic borders, stockpiling arms and weapons, as well as gradually much harsher sanctions for Russia together with increasing economic distancing - aka a strong response, could’ve shown Russia who not to trifle with. The former USSR states said multiple times that Russia wouldn’t recognize much apart force.
The Nord Stream pipeline was beyond idiotic. After signing the Paris agreement in 2015, agreeing to get more gas into the EU and from Russia of all parties, was just dumb. The dependency created was more on European side than Russian side.
Russia started testing its own internet and tried producing its own chips for Russian “independence”, but after the annexation how could that not be interpreted as preparation for disconnection from Western tech?
Probably the situation was complex back then and even more complex today, but the reality is that to many people the attack on Ukraine was not a surprise but a matter of time.