Ask Prof Wolff: What Europe Got Wrong about Sanctions on Russia

A Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Why, in your opinion, did European countries go along with the USA on sanctions on Russia after the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year? Did European leaders miscalculate negative impacts that these sanctions will have on Europe or counted on some benefits that will be worth the losses? Are any benefits present?"

This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.

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“Marxism always was the critical shadow of capitalism. Their interactions changed them both. Now Marxism is once again stepping into the light as capitalism shakes from its own excesses and confronts decline.”

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[zatoichison]

Superb !! What a mind !! Perhaps the Americans and Europeans do not like to hear the true but this is the true !! Thank you professor !!

[tschoong]

Yes, Professor, you are right. Europe thought that Russia would collapse and Europe will be sharing big chunks of the collapsed country's resources and wealth with the US. Unfortunately it did not turn out as always in the past, and instead today Europe is losing its competitive edge in the world and would have to struggle day by day to make a living.

[hafifi]

I have the same question, why Europe is aligned blindly with the United States despite the widespread political corruptions, violence, and ignorance !!

[truthseeker]

And as a citizen of Finland I am thinking - what have our stupid politicians done??? We should have stayed a neutral country not joining NATO. 😢

[redemissarium]

sanctioning isolated Russia is like stop talking to an introvert people, they feels nothing at all😅

[ujin]

Europe has been in denial for over a century now not having what it takes to admit that the US manipulates European politics to its advantage at the expense of the hard working European folk.

[michaelparris]

Europe thought they could pivot to Africa but Africa had already pivoted to China

[robertbennett]

Thank you for your valuable video. In my opinion, the US NATO trapped Russia into war in Donbass by pretending to support the Minsk Agreements, while at the same time arming the Ukraine regime to NATO standard.
Russia was expected to disentegrate after President Putin was deposed.
Then there would be a scramble for Russian resourses by the EU and US similar to the 1880's colonial Scramble for Africa. They envisaged an area from the Dniper River right thru the component states of the former Soviet Union to the border of China.
But, Russia has not collapsed.
Now, the threat to the EU NATO is that a new polarity is being established by BRIC countries.
It it something to look forward to.

[DareBlink]

Great contribution Prof Wolf but I think you missed two very important contributing factors to the backfiring of the sanctions: The first one is this Russia has been preparing on many levels against sanctions by creating their own financial system independent from SWIFT, as well as becoming self sufficient in virtually all technological aspects. Russia had been under sanctions for a very long time and knew there was a sting possibility that even bigger sanction were on the way.

The second big miscalculation was to trust the almost meaningless GDP measuring system that can easily be manipulated and inflated by adding factors that actually don't contribute to economy or output of any country. What really matters are 3 things: energy independence, having a highly qualified population and having a strong industrial base. Russia has all three and therefore could sustain any sanctions even without their allies in Asia (which definitely helped I'm not discounting that)

[evelynread]

Russia has been expecting this for years. They were prepared for this exact moment.

[thetruthinquirer]

Prof. I am convince China is on the moved on the same track as you have mentioned. Xi said to Putin at the doorstep of Kremlin, "Right now there are changes that we haven't seen for 100 years, we will be the ones driving the changes together". And Putin Agrees....With China's Road Map and Russian Muscles its not going to be difficult to get things done.

[JanWasp]

Professor Wolff, thank you so much for coming out and explaining quite clearly and bluntly what exactly is wrong with our European leaders. As yet, we don´t know when they will realise what they´ve done wrong, and work out how to get us out of this mess, yet there is a glimmer of hope when individuals such as yourself discuss issues in the open. We can disseminate this information, then people will start talking about it and it will make a difference.

[iitzkryy]

Imagine Russia builds a "defensive block" like NATO, from Columbia all up to Mexiko. I would love to see the U.S. reactions 😂

[robertoalcala]

As a European, I agree with everything he says in this video. Europe is now being charged for all the years it piggybacked on NATO with little economic effort. USA is now trying to rip apart Europe for its own benefit and to avoid a strong economic union between Europe and Russia that won't happen. There is censorship subtly taking place in Europe and journalists who speak against the norm are brought to court. Thanks for sharing this great analysis from Richard Wofff in the USA.

[Vantageman]

It puzzles me to realise that the economic growth of Russia in the last 12 months is bigger than that of many European countries despite all the sanctions against Russia.

[tutotutot]

as an african i am amazed at how much racism is entrenched in the western world that you can say so much and not mention africa at all, we have so much oil and gas but we need longterm contracts but they are refusing to sign. europeans want it all for free. todays professors are such a let down. germany came here wanted oil and gas we were all willing to supply but they wanted short term contracts and ended up signing the same longterm contract with qatar, they couldnt imagine enriching an african country. worth mentioning i think

[Shining]

❤️ Professor Wolff - very accurate, and well said 👍

[anirbanghosh]

The Western leadership, which considers only a small percentage of the Western population to be the international community and dreams of making that small percentage of opinion the world's opinion, excluding the populations of India, China and Asia, still has a lot to see. Long live India Russia 👍

[gabrielaelizabeth]

I am german, living in Greece . This Question of european following so closely the NATO US " politics '" is very urgent to me. I dodn t understand al those german " Politicians " at all. Thanks a lot to Mr Wolff

[ezzatmorsi]

From Canada: the analysis you have mentioned is great. It's good to understand the difficult situation in the war of Ukraine.