re: #102 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

I think that part of the motivation for the war was the fact that the Russian economy was already reeling from the pandemic and massive corruption and now they can use Western sanctions as a convenient way of covering up their own criminal negligence.

I really do wonder just how bad of a hit Russia’s economy took due to the COVID-19 pandemic (massive systemic corruption is par for the course as far as Russia is concerned); like you said, the ongoing sanctions are just an easy way for them to mask the true extent of that pandemic-related economic damage.