As we can see, sanctions and arm-twisting are not stopping the war, not weakening Russia. Not even politically given the recent elections in Russia! Even Ukraine keeps buying Russian gas and I can't recall any comment from otherwise very vocal Zenesky about it! If there are supply issues, is due to all the nonsense coming from EU, which only hurts it, not Russia. Even if EU deversifies from Russia, it will be at a dear price and it will take time and will only replace one dependency with another.

Yesterday's headline:

"Russia’s budget surplus evaporates as energy revenues shrink"

https://www.ft.com/content/d9cdc51f-5fe3-4f4a-b0e8-054ef21a2...

> Russia’s budget surplus for 2022 has almost evaporated after a sharp drop in energy exports during August led to a monthly deficit of as much as Rbs360bn ($5.9bn).

Russia is increasingly cutting itself now too:

> Revenues look set to worsen following Russia’s suspension of Nord Stream 1, one of its main gas pipelines to Europe, in early September.

> Russia’s economy shrunk 4.3 per cent in July 2022 compared with the same month a year earlier, according to the country’s economy ministry. Analysts at Aton, a Russian brokerage, expect the economy to contract by a further 5 per cent in 2023 because of falling energy output.

Even more important than the economic shrinkage, is the destruction of Russian industry (including military industry) through deprivation of technology access. This is also ignored by the parent comment. Russia can't rebuild or restock their military without the required external tech (much of which has been shown to depend on the US semiconductor industry). All of Russia's more modern military hardware requires foreign semiconductors, they're wildly incompetent in nearly all aspects domestically on advanced tech hardware. The sanctions are draining their military capabilities, in the present and for the next decade or so.

Russia is trending toward empty when it comes to their military inventory and they won't be able to replenish it as things stand. The only way they can is if China steps in and provides an epic scale infusion (which is not in China's interest).

Meanwhile the US can rev its military industrial complex to an extreme degree as it sees fit; and in tandem with Ukraine, obliterate Russia's military to the extent the Russians are dumb enough to continue occupying Ukrainian territory and sending more of their soldiers and hardware to the slaughter. The US hasn't even begun to seriously rev its production capabilities.

The equation there is Russia is fucked. Their national strength derives from energy + military power / power perception - one of those is heavily destroyed (courtesy of Ukraine's military + NATO weapons + sanctions).

Russia is so incompetent and drained they're having to source drones from Iran and go begging to North Korea.

I wonder what this war is going to do to Russia's exports of military hardware. Not only can they not defend or re-supply themselves, but who is going to want their stripped down, even less capable export versions of their weapons now, after seeing it destroyed by a handful of pieces of 20-30 year old western tech?

- Sanctions are most definitely weakening Russia, by demolishing its economy in the medium- and long-term.

- Russia has no elections since it's a near-totalitarian autocracy with usurpers firmly in charge by force.

- Ukraine hasn't been buying Russian gas for about 5 years now. Russian gas is transited via Ukraine, even during the war, since it's a rare situation that's in the best interest of all parties to the conflict, but 0 gas is purchased by Ukraine from Russia.

- Supply issues are due to a war of aggression and attempts to deprive the aggressor of a major revenue source (which no one claimed will stop the war immediately, it's a long-term/punitive move).

- EU has no choice but to diversify from Russia, since the only alternative is neutering of the EU and vassalage in all foreign policy matters that Putin chooses. (A significant percentage of the people expressing concern about supply issues and advocating a reversal are in fact concern-trolling and probably want this to happen. Are you one of those?)

Russia uses energy as a weapon, so it must be deprived of this weapon.

>Ukraine hasn't been buying Russian gas for about 5 years now

Yeah, they buy hungarian gas that just happens to flow from Russia. This is called "virtual reverse"

>Russia uses energy as a weapon, so it must be deprived of this weapon.

I heard Russia is willing to give up some of that in exchange for some rubles

Okay, I'll modify that. Ukraine hasn't been buying gas from Russia for about 5 years now. It buys gas from Europe, regardless of where it originates. If Russia cuts off the supply completely, Ukraine will buy whatever it needs from Europe (it also has enough of its own gas to supply its households, just not its industry).

>I heard Russia is willing to give up some of that in exchange for some rubles

I won't wish Russia good luck in this endeavour past 2023-2024, but I will note that it'll need all the luck it can get.

How can we see that?

Sanctions are long term. We are not long term yet.