US officials admit frustrations over ineffective Russia sanctions

US officials have admitted to the ineffectiveness of the sanctions slapped by the West against Russia over the Ukraine conflict.

Senior US officials told CNN that they were disappointed that the US-led sanctions, including the decision by the US and its allies to cut some Russian banks off from the international banking system, had not affected Russia as expected, CNN reported on Friday, adding, they were now hoping that the negative effect on Russia will materialize early next year.

“We were expecting ... sanctions on Russia’s banks would totally crater the Russian economy and that basically, by now going into September, we’d be dealing with an economically much more weakened Russia than the one that we are dealing with,” CNN cited the senior US official as saying in an interview.

Another senior US official voiced the same frustrations, telling CNN that many in the administration had hoped to see the Russian economy collapse by now.

However, another senior official talking to CNN claimed that they were expecting the anti-Russia sanctions to become effective after a period. 

“I think we’ve had, from the beginning, a view that when Russia invaded Ukraine and we imposed the sanctions, they were going to be, in all likelihood, a mid-to-long term sanctions regime,” the official said. “That is because we wanted to keep pressure on Russia over the long term as it waged war on Ukraine, and we wanted to degrade Russia’s economic and industrial capabilities. So we’ve always seen this as a long-term game.”

The official claimed that while there were some “up-front shocks” to the Russian economy, like when the ruble fell, Russia was able to rally quickly thanks to its energy revenues. Still, this official alongside western intelligence officials told CNN that they assess that in the long-term Russian economy will suffer due to loss of trade coupled with the heavy costs of the military operation.

Last week, CIA Director Bill Burns claimed, “There’s going to be long-term damage done to the Russian economy and to generations of Russians as a result of this.”

“Russia is going to pay a very heavy price, I think, over a long period of time,” the official warned.

In the meantime, Russia says the US-led sanctions were hurting the western nations more.

Putin: Anti-Moscow sanctions over Ukraine hurting West more than Russia

Putin says anti-Moscow sanctions imposed by the West over Ukraine conflict have backfired.

President Vladimir Putin said in May that anti-Moscow sanctions imposed by the West over Russia’s military operation in Ukraine have backfired and that Western countries have been hit worse by the bans.

Western governments "guided by short-sighted, inflated political ambitions and by Russophobia, deal a much harder blow to their own national interests, their own economies and the well-being of their own citizens," Putin said on a televised meeting on May 12, 2022.

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