Russian Atrocities Go Well Beyond Eastern Ukraine... Sanctions Should Reflect That

     During the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, Russia, not China (China has no moral high ground, but they do not share blame for this particular issue), launched a disinformation campaign to help Donald Trump get elected and defend him from his impeachment for withholding military aid from Ukraine while spreading conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

     Online, they've also been responsible for harboring cybercriminals responsible for the SolarWinds attack in December 2020, the Colonial Pipeline attack in May 2021, and the JBS attack the following month, among numerous others. Each time, Russia has refused to take responsibility. Each time, Russia has not condemned these acts. Each time, Russia has emboldened these criminals. And that's when we give them the benefit of the doubt.

     Russia has committed serious human rights abuses at home and abroad. At home, Russia poisoned the leader of its sole opposition movement, Alexei Navalny, and then sent him to prison for three years for "violating probation" when his unconscious body was taken to Germany for medical treatment. Now, at the convenient moment they are invading Ukraine, they are not only drumming up new charges that will add 15 years to his sentence, but they are also seeking to imprison his brother, as well. That's on top of the thousands of people they arrest every year for exercising their human rights of peaceful protest. Meanwhile, in Chechnya, they commit the worst atrocities against the LGBT2SQIA+ community of any developed nation: gay people are kidnapped, sent to concentration camps, tortured, and killed by the hundreds every year. These reports have been confirmed by independent observers and international human rights observers.

     Abroad, their atrocities have been just as bad and, in some cases, worse. In the Central African Republic, Syria, and other nations (including just in the past few months, Mali), their Wagner Group has been involved in high-profile cases of beating, torturing, beheading, and murdering civilians and contractors alike. In Afghanistan, they paid bounties on the heads of U.S. troops.

     That's on top of their illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the nation of Ukraine as a whole in 2022. Sanctions against Russia introduced this week have the capacity to cut its GDP by eight percent, or the equivalent of the Great Recession, three times the impact of all 2014 sanctions. We can't stop there. For the reasons listed above, it's time to aim to cut Russia's GDP by 25 percent or more. The die has been cast: there is no peaceful future while Vladimir Putin lies, steals, cheats, and kills his way into power.