>>106033707
kicking russia out of swift and enacting various other financial sanctions did hurt them. they lost their most lucrative trading partners and are now forced to sell to china and india for much cheaper. china and india are now getting rich off of russia's desperation. china especially is giving them so much shit that russia may default on those debts, at which point i reckon china will bite off a big chunk of siberia as payment.

imo i think it's a little funny that russians fret about NATO expansion but aren't worried at all about becoming increasingly indebted to and reliant on an authoritarian state that is vastly more powerful than them, and also looking to prove itself militarily right on their back yard

but anyway the western world cannot "collapse" the russian economy, because ultimately it's the government decision to allow for a collapse. they're the ones with the guns so they decide who gets paid and with what. it's the same shit as in late ww2 nazi germany: every projection showed that budgets would run out and the system should collapse in like 1938, but instead the authoritarian government just goes "nuh uh" and pays debnts with troll logic, basically stiffing everyone in their country. in this case the economy stays functional, but the people involved in it are forced to work for free. any russian who is happy that their government is scamming their way out of economic hardship is just celebrating their own enslavement