How to stop Putin’s mad dash to war:
that for sanctions to work, they have to prove painful not only to Russian oligarchs but to the Russian people. “If Russian public opinion turns sour on Putin, or if the average Russian no longer wants to follow Putin, then we'll see a shift,” she said. “If you have sanctions that trickle down into Russian society and prevent people from building wealth, you’re starting to actually hit the population in a way that hasn't happened before.
Sanctions will work best if they target not just the oligarchs and government officials, but their families, Kulachenkov said. That’s because many of their families are the ones living in luxury and spending the “corrupt” money in Western countries. Countries could also cancel the residency permits for family members. “That would be painful," he said. Kulachenkov added that it might already be too late to impose meaningful sanctions, considering conditions on the ground in Ukraine.
Alperovitch said that sanctions should be paired with muscular military posturing. He suggested increasing the deployment of troops to NATO countries and moving intermediate-range ballistic missiles closer to Russia, in the Baltics, since Putin has in the past talked about what he calls a threat from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. “That will be significant leverage for potential negotiation of a resolution,” Alperovitch said.