Victoria Nuland:
Geoff, we did sanction technology from around the world as — two years ago, just before and after the invasion.
What has happened is that Russia has found ways to evade those sanctions, going to third markets or buying, for example, a billion washing machines, and then taking out the computer chips that we have denied them in other ways.
So, this is a tightening of those sanctions as Russia adjusts, and we’re confident that they’re going to have a very profound impact. But the other thing that’s happening, and this is quite worrying, is that Russia has been willing to intensify its economic and security relationship with China, in fact, becoming increasingly dependent on China.
And that is how it is fueling its war machine. It’s also been willing to put the vast majority of its own economic stimulus into the war effort, so it is starving Russia and Russians of investment in education in their own future, all in service of Putin’s imperial ambitions.
So, what we are having to do is adjust as well.
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