>The contracts likely have clauses related to failures to deliver, and Russia will have little influence over how those clauses will be implemented.

Im sure there are plenty of clauses, but once you are at economic war with a country, the contracts don't matter. They aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Thats my point.

Russia says old contracts are void and has the gas. EU Can agree to new contracts or go without. They cant use the old contracts to make Russia give them gas on the original terms. What will they do if Russia refuses? sue them for breach of contract, sanction them, and seize their foreign reserves?

The answer is easy. They are going to claim the money from the reserves that were put on hold until the war ends.

E.g. if Russia would continue with gas supplies, the money for gas would got into the locked accounts. After war would end, Russia would get locked accounts minus reparations. Now if Russia stops supplies, after war ends Russia will get locked accounts minus reparations minus penalties for the failure to deliver gas.

I dont think Russia cares about the reserves because they don't think they will ever see them again. Reparations could easily exceed the total reserve.

Plus, they aren't planning to leave Ukraine, so they aren't planning to get it back

Therefore the money is a sunk cost and not leverage. Therefore finical penalties don't matter.

There's a circular logic in your claim. You claim they aren't planning to leave, and therefore it is not leverage. But the point of that is to exactly affect the plan to leave, which is not set in stone, obviously. The fact that they aren't leaving right now doesn't guarantee they won't leave in the future.

I think you are confusing consistent logic for circular logic. Putin never plans to hand back eastern Ukraine, why would he care about something that affects russia only if it does? They are not planning for failure.

The u.s. and Canada have a demilitarized border. This would be bad for the u.s. if we went to war with Canada. However, we don't plan to go to war with Canada, so we aren't basing our decisions on that outcome.

There are certainly things that may make Putin and more specifically Russia (which can also let go of Putin) let go of eastern Ukraine. In fact, there's a spectrum of such things from nicely asking, through sanctions and military resistance, all the way up to a second front opening on the border with China or nukes flying. The plan (whatever it is) has a line drawn somewhere on that spectrum, which signifies it is time to let go. And every new bit of military equipment, fines, sanctions is pushing it slowly toward that line.

Your claim is essentially there's no line, or that there is not a spectrum or that that line is beyond any economic measures. But there's no proof of that, so the logic in your "proof" is circular because your proof predicates on you knowing exactly where the line is (or isn't), when the location of the line is the thing to be proven.

I'm not saying there is no line to get Russia out of Ukraine. Anything is possible.

I am saying that it unlikely to be reached and my personal opinion is we are moving further from it not closer.

I'm also saying that Russia is not making decisions as if it will be crossed. They are doing the exact opposite, making decisions assuming that they will not be forced out and will not get the reserves back.

I don't think they would realistically get the foreign reserves back even if they left, so that isn't much of an incentive.

The US and EU have to much politically at stake to hand them back, even if they leave. It would be seen as letting Russia get away without consequences for the invasion.

Time will prove one of us wrong. In 5 years Russia will either be occupying Eastern Ukraine or not. They will either have control of the foreign reserves back or not.