Pumped up by huge state spending on soldiers and weapons, as well as by redirecting vital energy exports to the likes of China and India, Russia’s economy has so far defied Western hopes sanctions would push it into a deep recession.

This line is annoying. You think people couldn’t predict that Putin would keep his war machine afloat with the huge backstock of cash they had saved up? Of course he would.

The goal is to drain it over time, like any other reserve of resources. Nobody serious about the topic expected the sanctions to suddenly destroy the Russian economy. The goal was to make things more expensive, to apply pressure that would weaken them over time. This is why you haven’t seen many Western analysts predicting a swift Russian collapse, because that was not very likely when they had billions and billions saved up that could and would be deployed. The question is: how long can they keep up this demanding of a pace, when they’re dealing with finite resources and limited inflows? That second part on limiting inflows is what the sanctions are part of.