US, allies failed to deter Putin. Can tougher measures stop him now?

At a spirited pro-Ukraine rally in New York’s Washington Square Park Sunday, more than one of the dozens of hand-lettered signs implored President Joe Biden to do more to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.

“Biden stop World War 3,” read one. “Biden Stop Putin Save Ukraine,” read another.

The signs held aloft in a sea of yellow and sky-blue Ukrainian flags raised critical questions about the effectiveness of the economic sanctions and other measures initially imposed by the United States and its Western allies once Mr. Putin launched Thursday the biggest invasion of a European country since World War II.

Once weeks of diplomacy and U.S.-led warnings of severe consequences if Mr. Putin chose to go to war failed to deter Russia, the U.S. and its partners imposed measures widely criticized as too weak and unlikely to quickly alter the Russian leader’s calculus.

On display now around the world is a broad frustration with the limited deterrent ability of slow-moving sanctions and other punitive measures in the face of fast-moving military action.

Moreover, the New York demonstration and dozens more like it over the weekend in Western capitals and other cities around the globe suggest a popular demand for tougher measures than perhaps leaders at first assumed their publics would tolerate.

In Germany, for example, early on considered the weak link in Western unity against Russian aggression, more than 100,000 people rallied for Ukraine Sunday at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.

Leaders emboldened

The global message – underscored by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s highly effective daily video dispatches from a besieged Kyiv, imploring the U.S.-led international community for bolder action – seemed to be that timid measures aimed at punishing Russia over time were not enough.

And while the impact of the pro-Ukraine, anti-Putin demonstrations remains open to debate, what is clear is that Western leaders are feeling emboldened to move more forcefully.

Over the weekend they went beyond their initial actions to measures that already Monday were having an impact on Russia’s economy as well as on Mr. Putin’s diplomatic agenda. Signs are also mounting that as the invasion appeared to get bogged down and fall well short of initial expectations of a quick Russian victory, the U.S. and other Western powers were prepared to offer stepped-up defensive military support to Ukraine.

Weekend actions targeting Russia’s central bank and financial transactions by Russia’s top banks caused the already weak ruble to plunge in value by 30% Monday, while the Russian stock market closed over fears of a broad collapse. The Bank of Russia more than doubled interest rates from 9.5% to 20% in an attempt to defend the ruble.

The turbulence caused Mr. Putin to call an emergency meeting of his economic advisers, while Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov spoke of Russia entering a new “economic reality.”

Need for quicker impact

Initially, when Mr. Putin launched his war on Ukraine, many officials and international affairs experts acknowledged that the U.S. and other Western powers would likely be limited to measures that would inflict pain on Russia over time.

“Sanctions raise the costs to Russia of launching this war in the middle of Europe, but generally speaking they’re not going to get you results tomorrow,” says Bruce Jentleson, a professor of political science and international affairs at Duke University in North Carolina and a former senior adviser to the State Department during the Obama administration.

“In no way is it giving up on Ukraine,” he adds, “but it’s an approach that is going to take some time to get you to your goal, which is to raise the costs and make this an albatross for Putin and a very close inner circle that supports him.”

Still, recognition of a need for measures that have a quicker impact seemed implicit in comments from leaders and officials after the flurry of actions over the weekend.

“Very soon the Russian leadership will feel what a high price they will have to pay” for the invasion of Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday.

Moreover, in addition to the economic measures that the Group of Seven wealthy democracies took Saturday, Germany announced it would reverse course and proceed to supply Ukraine with advanced military equipment, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.

Beyond that, Mr. Scholz announced he would also seek to raise Germany’s military spending, kept low over recent decades by German anti-war sentiments.

The Biden administration is also keen to dispel the notion that had been taking hold last week that the measures the Western powers were imposing would only have a medium-term impact and thus be easily dismissed by Mr. Putin.

In comments Monday with reporters, senior Biden administration officials said the financial measures adopted over the weekend by Western leaders aimed to make the “war of choice” a strategic blunder for Mr. Putin and to demonstrate that “no country is sanction-proof when we act together.”

Noting the immediate signs Monday of economic instability in Russia, one official said, “The strategy is to make sure the Russian economy goes backward as long as President Putin goes forward with his invasion of Ukraine.”

One official noted that measures freezing Russia’s holdings in U.S. banks and in U.S. dollars globally would have an immediate impact on Russia’s ability to access the $630 billion in reserves it has carefully amassed over recent years.

Switzerland sends a signal

As a further sign that the world is coming together in unprecedented ways to limit Russia’s ability to insulate its economy from the war, Switzerland announced Monday that it would set aside its traditional neutrality to join the European Union in freezing Russian financial assets.

Swiss President Ignazio Cassis said that “the unprecedented military action by Russia on a sovereign European state” was prompting his country to join other European states and the global community to freeze the Swiss-held assets of Mr. Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and more than 360 other Russian individuals sanctioned by the EU last week.

Signs also multiplied Monday that the rallying to Ukraine’s cause and in opposition to the Russian war is spreading beyond the Western powers. South Korea announced it is banning the export to Russia of strategic products including semiconductors, sensors, lasers, and aerospace equipment. Seoul also announced it was joining efforts to block some Russian banks from the SWIFT payments system.

For Professor Jentleson, the growing number – and variety – of measures being taken by the U.S. and other countries point to what he calls a “porcupine strategy” to affect Russia’s behavior and tolerance for pursuing its war.

Having failed to stop Russia from invading Ukraine, the U.S. and others are employing sanctions and other “quills” to increase the pressure Russia experiences as long as it keeps up its war, he says. So, in addition to financial measures inflicting economic pain, the U.S. and others are taking steps to bolster the Ukrainian military as it confronts Russia – and then to support a Ukrainian insurgency in the event the Ukrainian military collapses but a Russian occupation drags out.

Calls for more, still

Others with experience in imposing sanctions are lauding what the Biden administration and partners have done so far – but insist still more can be done.

“No doubt, we are in a better place on sanctions and military support than we were 48 hours ago. But we are simply not there yet,” said Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, who in 2019-20 directed Iran sanctions policy for the Trump National Security Council.

Calling a new U.S. and European openness to supplying Ukraine with critical weaponry “excellent,” Mr. Goldberg said in a series of tweets Sunday that Western sanctions on Russia are still not “maximalist” and are not yet treating Russia like a “pariah state.”

He called for moving beyond the partial barring of Russian banks from the SWIFT global payments system to a total ban, while advocating more extensive sanctions against Russian diplomats.

Russia’s invasion of a sovereign country remains at the heart of the mounting global outrage, but at the same time it seems clear that Ukrainians’ tenacity and resilience in the face of a much more powerful aggressor are also fueling the groundswell for action.

In Washington Friday, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, made another of her many pleas for international assistance for her besieged country that invoked humanity’s natural tendency to side with any David facing a Goliath.

“We realize we are not a match in terms of weapons to the country that is attacking us, a nuclear power,” she said in comments to the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry organization. “But that is not a reason to lose hope, but to be very direct and open with our friends” in the U.S. and elsewhere “for help.”

Pleading for more weapons “to allow us to defend ourselves” and for stronger sanctions including a complete ban of Russia from the SWIFT system, she said, “Russia has already crossed all the red lines, the world understands there are no more red lines to wait for for Russia to cross.”