“the bulk of Putin’s windfall is already in the bank.”
Correction: already spent - and then some.
The money that came in is gone, and they have been running bigger budget deficits (in surplus before the war and sanction), cashing out the National Wealth Fund, and printing money at a blistering rate.
Russia is excluded from borrowing on international markets, and the main credit ratings agencies (e.g. S&P Global, Moody’s, Fitch) have dropped its creditworthiness off their charts (below D).
This is an epic economic disaster for Russia, worse than the 1990’s, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Back then, the rest of the World was looking to help rebuild a new Russia. Now the world is looking to kick Russia while it is down, to knock the aggression out of it.
Putin’s giant crime spree is not the future that the neighbors on Planet Earth are willing to accept. No reward for aggression.
Punishment.
We have done more damage to ourselves than we have to Russia. The money keeps rolling in to Putin. The world supply is the world supply. The EU and soon the US is borrowing hundreds of billions to subsidize their citizens’ purchase of Russian gas on the world market. The idiots in the West couldn’t have written a better script for Putin’s cashing in, all paid for by chumps like you and me.
Did you see that? Truss is going to borrow 150 billion pounds to subsidize British consumer payments to Putin and other exporters. You can’t make this up. And even crazier, guys like you cheering the boobs in Brussels on.
We are returning to a multipolar world; what worth is a credit rating from S&P Global and Moody's if over half of the world's global population are still willing to trade with you?
The ability and willingness of Russia to repay was never in question; their inability to do so is tied to the sanctions and their removal from the SWIFT system, i.e. economic war by proxy.
But there are non-Westerners still willing to buy food and fuel from Russia; why wouldn't they go elsewhere?