More private companies join sanctions against Russia but their impact have yet to be assessed
Other than governments, private companies have begun to impose their own sanctions on Russia over President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine such as limiting or shutting down service.
Earlier, football governing bodies FIFA and UEFA suspended all Russian international and club teams from competitions “until further notice.”
On March 6, China-based TikTok announced the suspension of live streaming services in Russia amid the government’s new “fake news” law limiting information regarding the invasion. This despite China's friendly relations with Russia.
Netflix has also shut down its operations in Russia. No new customers will be able to sign up while it’s still unclear what will happen to existing accounts.
The two companies join Airbnb, Ikea, Hermes, the Volkswagen Group, H&M, Boeing, Ford, Maersk, Shell, Mastercard and Visa, Facebook’s Meta, Google, and others.
Stock market to plummet
Now two weeks into the invasion, sanctions aimed at punishing Russia are expected to cause the stock market to plummet. Experts have said these are the hardest sanctions Moscow has faced.
However, it may take more time for these sanctions to dent Putin’s plans and/or hurt the Russian economy enough to affect the violence in Ukraine.
"This is going to impose severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time," Biden said. "We have purposely designed these sanctions to maximize a long-term impact on Russia, and to minimize impact on the United States and our allies."
Wartime analysts remember the US sanctions in 1979 against the Soviet Union for invading Afghanistan took years to see results.
More recently, the 2014 sanctions places in Russia after it annexed Crimea was initially effective in slowing Russia’s economic growth and is believed to refrain Putin from military engagements for the next eight years.
“In 2014, after we hit him, he backed off. Not all the way and not for good, but we had eight years of relative peace. Now he’s back. Maybe we should have kept the pressure on,” said Daniel Fried, a longtime diplomat and former ambassador to Poland well-versed in the Russo-Ukrainian War.--- With reports from Aljazeera, Fortune
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