Sanctions against Russia are not backfiring
Simon Jenkins (The rouble is soaring and Putin is stronger than ever – our sanctions have backfired, 29 July) writes that sanctions “are meant to intimidate peoples into restraining their princes”. Throughout his piece he puts forward this very instrumentalist view of sanctions, but says not a word about the ethical component.
If you learned that a friend was engaging in deeply immoral behaviour, you may well confront them on it, and if they persist you may choose to distance yourself. I doubt if anyone would think that withholding friendship will force them to change; you just don’t want anything to do with them any more. You no longer operate in a shared moral universe.
I think there are a great number of people in this country who would rather suffer high fuel costs than buy Russian gas – on moral grounds. Of course, the problem with ethical sanctions is where to draw the line; if Russia, then why not Saudi Arabia, China or Israel? This is often a grey area, not least because we in the “enlightened west” are far from being morally pure. But invading a neighbouring country, unprovoked, is as unequivocal a violation of the international order as you can find, and it should not be tolerated, whatever the cost.David SutherlandLondon
Mr Jenkins’ well-argued article misses the point. Although he correctly points out that “the interdependence of the world’s economies, so long seen as an instrument of peace, has been made a weapon of war”, he entirely misses the fact that the sanctions regime orchestrated against Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine is primarily targeted at breaking Russia’s interdependence – its supposed integration – in the world economy. Just as Angela Merkel foolishly believed integrating Russia into
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