Comment by irjustin

> that is what economic sanctions are designed to do

Agreed - that is the point. To hurt ordinary people so that they care (not said lightly). Sanctions are designed to punish a whole country.

While messed up, you can't just affect/punish the leadership. If you could we would already be doing that. The way to hurt the leaders is to hurt the ordinary people such that they vote, rise up, etc against the governmental actions.

Russia's ruble has dropped up to 40%+ because of the sanctions and the people are pulling their money in droves. This puts huge pressure on Putin to rethink what he's doing by making it incredibly expensive to wage this war.