World News

Ok, let's start from the very very beginning.

Our sanctions and the self-sanctioning by companies themselves are draining Russia’s economy and thus draining the Kremlin’s war machine.

"are draining" is in the present progressive. It denotes an action in progress, not a completed action. Meaning the sanctions were in the process of draining the economy. Von der Leyen's claim was not that the draining had completed but that it was in progress.

next is your complete lack of understanding of how sanctions work.

the third package was indeed in fact, not draining the economy, since 17 more were needed after that

The very first sanctions package was immediately called "first sanctions package" at the time

https://www.noerr.com/en/insights/eu-imposes-a-first-package-of-new-sanctions-against-russia-in-the-ukrainian-crisis

The understanding, from the very first sanctions package, was that this would be a continuous process, with sanctions package after sanctions package, not a one and done deal that then needs to haphazardly be amended as you seem to think.

Sanctions need to be amended as the economic reality shifts and loopholes need to be plugged as the target of sanctions finds ways to evade them.

The 17 packages after the third were always going to happen because that is fundamentally how sanctions work.

And let's look at numbers. European sanctions have reduced Russian fossil fuel export revenues by about $300-500 million per day. Not sure how you would describe this, other than "draining the economy". And this does not include any other sanctions affecting other parts of the economy.

In your favourite metric, ballistic missiles, that is worth about 750-1000 Iskanders per day given the $400-500k unit production cost. Now of course money isn't the biggest limiting factor in Russia's ability to manufacture those, it's largely parts availability leads to big fluctuations in production quantities. Parts availabilities, which, surprise, are limited due to sanctions.

or do you really think just making things a little more shitty for ordinary Russians

Strawman. "draining the economy" is not about making things a little more shitty for ordinary Russians. It's about reducing Russia's ability to finance the war, which takes time considering Russia had a $600 billion war chest, half of which is frozen in mostly European banks, thanks to the sanctions, and the other half is now, thanks to the sanctions, that were draining the economy, mostly drained. And it is about reducing Russia's ability to source industrial machines and components to reduce their ability to manufacture weapons, like your favourite one, the ballistic missile. Where production quantities, as mentioned above, are fluctuating due to sanctions.

As I have stated before, it was constantly repeated all the way back in 2022 that sanctions would not defeat Russia on their own, and certainly not immediately, and would take years. The point was, from the very beginning, to make it increasingly difficult for Russia to finance the war and to produce weapons, so Ukraine could gain the upper hand, which is now manifesting on the battlefield, after years, as predicted.

People like you were told in at the very start in 2022 that the real world doesn't work like TikTok instant gratification, and here you are more than 4 years later still not having gotten the point.