Instead of a sweeping package that crippled top Russian banks, cut its financial transactions off from the global economy, or personally singled out Vladimir Putin -- the U.S. and its allies settled on a modest “first tranche” of penalties. Markets responded with a shrug, underwhelmed by the tit-for-tat approach.
The sanctions targeted a pair of Russian banks, VEB.RFand Promsvyazbank as well as three members of Russia’s elite with close ties to the Kremlin. The penalties also sought to freeze future purchases of Russian sovereign debt.
Yet the sanctions hardly amounted to the precedent-shattering, economy-crippling measures the U.S. and its partners long telegraphed if Russian troops rolled across the border.
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The White House bet seems to be that sanctions restraint will cause Mr. Putin to settle for holding the regions his forces now occupy and forgoing an assault on Kyiv. But the Russian has never been deterred before by Western restraint, and he may see this as more weakness. Mr. Putin responds only to strength, and the West still isn’t showing enough.
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