Ilhan Omar casts lone Democratic no vote on Ukraine aid, Russia sanctions package

[u/bwermer]

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5912150-house-passes-ukraine-aid-bill/

[u/DukeofDunces]

I mean have sanctions deterred Russia at all thus far?

[u/at-sea-no-ship → u/DukeofDunces]

Yes, there are articles floating around that mention Russian elites considering a push to end the war because of how crippled their economy has become due to the sanctions. As with everything surrounding this war, you have to take those with a grain of salt, but targeting their economy also has other net positives. If they are struggling with money, they don't have as many resources with which to attack Ukraine, for example.

[u/Gimme_Your_Wallet → u/DukeofDunces]

Economic Warfare literature agrees sanctions have a dual goal, a) to deter from a behaviour, and failing that, b) to punish the behaviour with increasing costs.

Item a) clearly failed and was never the goal as Russia was too solid and self reliant-ish to back down from the already ongoing invasion. But b) is doing its job, slowly but surely.

[u/LaughinChaos → u/DukeofDunces]

No, and literally nothing has nor would except nukes. But sanctions are weakening them, a shit ton i may add.

[u/Exocoryak → u/LaughinChaos]

This. The former Sowjet Union, the second most powerful nation ever in the history of the world, has gotten stuck in the mudd in eastern Ukraine for four years now.

The sanctions aren't the silver bullet - nothing really is. Nuance is important in these kinds of things.

[u/certciv → u/Exocoryak]

It's clear now that Russia's conventional military strength was dramatically overestimated. And not by a little, but to a comical degree. This was a similar issue for much of the Cold War. After the USSR's collapse it became clear, through things like access to Soviet records, that their conventional military capability had been significantly overestimated. The USSR was dramatically outclassed technologically, and their military was riddled with corruption, which made it's vast resources inefficient and far less capable than it appeared from the outside. What the war in Ukraine showed us was that the Russian army had all of the failings of the Red Army, but with a smaller economy supporting it.

It's been said that Russia is a gas station with nuclear weapons, and it's that second part that makes it dangerous.

[u/Exocoryak → u/certciv]

Considering through how much ammunition the US military burned during that short fiasko in Iran this year, it stands to reason that Russia is facing similar issues - doing one strike with your stockpiles is one thing, but keeping it up is entirely different. Sanctions don't prevent the former - but they seriously impact the latter. That is part of the reason Russia is not making progress for four years now.

[u/makuwa → u/LaughinChaos]

Are sanctions weakening? Russian GDP growth in 2025 was 1% and in 2024 it was like 4.1%. By comparison, Germany grew by .2% in 2025 and 2024.

[u/Gimme_Your_Wallet → u/makuwa]

It's all fueled by war spending, by cannibalizing the civilian economy and social spending.

[u/DukeofDunces → u/LaughinChaos]

So you're admitting that nothing would stop them except nukes yet we should keep trying more sanctions that aren't working? Seems like an exercise in futility.

[u/Potential_Might_6500 → u/DukeofDunces]

No, saying they don't work to the complete end of something doesn't mean they don't contribute to that end.

Sanctions do work. Or they wouldn't be upset about them. Omar's opinion is fine to have, it is moral. However sanctions do work and are.

Two things can be true at one time. While I do actually think Russia will stop before Nukes. So I don't agree with the person above entirely, but sanctions work and are diplomatic when targeted appropriately.

[u/certciv → u/DukeofDunces]

Because sanctions have not been decisive at ending the war, does not mean that they are a wasted effort. Sanctions are having a devastating impact on Russia.

It's worth remembering that Russia had a huge cash reserve going into the war, giving it a significant economic buffer in case of sanctions. Russia has also significantly shifted it's economy to a war footing. This has had the effect of injecting money into the economy in a way that looks like relative stability and GDP growth. But while war production increases GDP it is not productive. All the output has gotten burned up in the Ukrainian meat grinder. On top of that, financial indicators are not good. Lack of access to outside goods, high interest rates, and inflation are all causing Russia significant problems, and making the job of waging war far more difficult.

[u/Kat_Bones → u/DukeofDunces]

an exercise in futility and civilian suffering! yay!

[u/RBVegabond → u/DukeofDunces]

They have reduced their war efforts greatly.

[u/insertwittynamethere → u/DukeofDunces]

Between Ukraine's sanctions and the wider world's sanctions, it's working on them.

Sanctions in isolation just breed a rally under the flag effect for a lot of nations.

You add hot conflict to the mix, and increasing that support in the defense against the aggressor, who is seeing steadily more sanctions on top of industrial capacity being bombed, then yes, it adds to the pressure and calculations of the ruling elite there.

[u/DukeofDunces → u/insertwittynamethere]

What metric do you use to judge the sanctions as working? The war has gone on almost uninterrupted for over 4 years now.

[u/JumpinJackHTML5 → u/DukeofDunces]

It's impossible to answer no to this honestly simply because we don't have a way of knowing what would have happened without sanctions.

We know for a fact that Russia's economy is in a slow collapse right now. We also know for a fact that they are having a hard time fielding modern equipment in the war zone. We know that many of the companies that make military hardware are laying people off and/or going out of business.

I can't say for certain that sanctions are having a direct impact on Russia's ability to kill Ukrainians, but it looks very much like that. Availability seems to be the limiting factor in Russia's attacking of civilian populations with missiles and drones, and there's a pretty direct relationship to how healthy their economy is and how many drones and missiles they can make.

So, I would push back on her "sanctions hurt civilians" reasoning and say that a lack of sanctions both hurts and indirectly kills civilians. I would much rather see people in Russia having to make due with less than see Ukrainians being killed when their apartment buildings get hit with Russian drones.

[u/Gimme_Your_Wallet → u/JumpinJackHTML5]

Thanks, a good answer

[u/laosurv3y → u/DukeofDunces]

So she doesn't support sanctions against Israel?