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Russia’s Economic Meltdown, Putin’s Big Mistake, and the West’s Financial War Against Vlad and His Cronies

Derek discusses sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe

By Derek Thompson
TOPSHOT-RUSSIA-POLITICS-PUTIN Photo by SERGEI GUNEYEV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images


Things are moving very, very fast in Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine—and in the global response to punish Russia. The U.S. and Europe are not engaged in a literal war against Putin, but this weekend they announced a series of unprecedented sanctions and economic penalties that could level the Russian economy. These policies are designed to get Putin to end the war before he takes Kyiv. But could they crash the Russian economy and trigger more global crisis? To explain the sanctions, discuss their pluses and minuses, and predict their ripple effects, Derek is joined by Noah Smith, an economist and the author of the newsletter Noahpinion, and Nicolas Véron, a French economist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Bruegel.

Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Noah Smith and Nicolas Véron
Producer: Devon Manze

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