Key quote from the story:<p>"I don’t think Russia is blind to what is going on and it must indicate to them that the West does not really have the stomach for a painful fight over Ukraine.”<p>The West will help Ukraine but not too much. As we've seen with SWIFT, it's still possible that this decision will be overturned.
Not from the article, but I read elsewhere that the sanctions also have a carve-out exclusion for Italian luxury goods - certainly not a NEED<p>Also, in the case of the United States, Canada and Germany our energy dependency on Russian oil is entirely self-inflicted. There were other options but the short-term optics of environmental concerns superceded the desire for energy independence - now we are seeing the implications of those decisions.
We NEED russian gas and oil. They need to sell it to us. So no neither side CAN sanction it for now.<p>The best we can do is a huge, rapid expansion of import capacity from other countries.