Sanctions already imposed on Russia over Ukraine have not deterred the Kremlin. Will unconventional approaches work?
When Joe Biden met Vladimir Putin in 2021, the leaders staring at each other across the library of a Geneva lakeside villa, the US president warned there would be “devastating consequences” for Moscow if Alexei Navalny died in Russian custody.
Biden was reminded of those words on Friday following Navalny’s sudden, mysterious death in a Russian penal colony, and his response was to point out that the warning had been delivered three years ago and that, in the intervening time, Putin had “faced a hell of a lot of consequences”.
The consequences the president went on to list included Russia’s losses in the Ukrainian war, including 350,000 troops dead or wounded, and “great sanctions across the board”.
“We’re contemplating what else could be done,” Biden added. “We’re looking at a whole number of options.”
It is not clear what Biden’s options might be. The consequences he spelled out on Friday were almost entirely those which Putin has brought on to his own country with his disastrous invasion of Ukraine, rather than for his treatment of Russia’s most famous dissident.
They have indeed been damaging for the country as a whole, but they have so far failed to topple Putin’s regime or forced him to call off his invasion. Instead, he has put the Russian economy on a war footing, privileging the defence sector, rebuilding the army and allowing the pain of sanctions to fall largely on Russian civilians.
Biden and allied leaders are now faced with the dilemma of what they could possibly do that would make any difference to the Kremlin. As Biden implied, the greatest cost the west has inflicted has been in the form of military aid to Ukraine, helping Kyiv fight back and recapture more than half the territory lost in the 2022 full-scale invasion. But now continued US military assistance is being held hostage by the Republican leadership in Congress which is loyal to Donald Trump, who has consistently been admiring of Putin and disparaging of Nato.
