Feb. 27—Russia, with all of its problems, did not crumble under Western sanctions. It turns out that a lot of what they could get from the West had little to do with survival, and they were thrown back to the necessity of concentrating on producing more of what they actually needed. The country did not break apart over the mobilization to free the Donbass from Kiev’s eight years of artillery shelling and political deprivations. It turns out there really are a lot of native Russians and Russian-speakers in Crimea and the Donbass, whom other Russians identify with. (It wasn’t as if they were being conscripted to fight an imperialist war.) And the supposed “isolation” of Russia has done more to isolate the West from the Global Majority of the world than leaving Russia punished in the corner.
