In January, The Saturday Debate examined whether sanctions could work against Russian President Putin. Today, we debate whether they are working. Opinion
Putin’s inability to replace tanks and other weapons, which have been destroyed over the past two months by Ukrainian defence forces, has contributed to his failure to make significant gains. Yet Western democratic nations can do significantly more to intensify the effects of our current sanctions.
We also need to acknowledge that Putin’s oligarchs hide their money in the names of family members, nominees, and proxies. We have to be creative and thorough in going after those entire networks and update our existing sanctions legislation to allow us to include these individuals and entities on our sanctions lists.