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Tucker in this video said that sanctions against Russia aren't hurting Putin and its side-effects are just hurting US people by raising gas price.
Do US sanctions against Russia really not have any notable impact on Russia's economy to stop it from invading Ukraine? I think it's obvious that banning oil import hurts Russia's economy, but how much? Is it really remarkable? And will the effects be felt in the short term?
Tucker Carlson would appear to be wrong about this. He has been talking a remarkably pro-Putin line since the Russo-Ukrainian war heated up, and this doesn't seem to have much contact with reality.
For example, here's a story about the re-opening of the Russian stock market. It re-opened on Thursday March 24th, and rose slightly, so things are good with the Russian economy, no?
No. Foreign investors, who hold about 80% of the total shares in the Russian market, were not permitted to sell shares, at all. No short-selling is allowed, by anyone. Only a restricted list of companies, 33 blue-chip stocks by Russian standards, could be traded. This does not give any kind of truthful indication of business confidence in Russia. The Biden Administration's description of it as a "charade" seems accurate. If the sanctions weren't having an effect, these restrictions would not be needed.
Tucker Carlson has supported Putin's actions with such consistency and vehemence that a Republican political strategist suggested that he should be investigated by the Department of Justice as a "foreign asset" who is "shilling for Putin." It's not clear why he's doing this, but he is not a reliable source on this subject.
Quantifying the impact on the Russian economy of the oil and gas sanctions is difficult, because it's a moving target, with complex effects. Oil and gas exports are Russia's main source of foreign exchange, which means that their ability to import goods will be severely limited. The fall in the value of the rouble has been significant, in spite of Russian attempts to prop it up.
Update, March 31st: The rouble is now trading at levels seen before the war escalated, but this is fairly artificial:
All of these things create an artificial demand for roubles, and thus push up its exchange rate. They also mean that nobody would want to buy Russian securities, or convert money into roubles unless they really needed to. If these restrictions remain in place, Russia would be cut off from much of the world economy even if the sanctions ended. However, if the restrictions are removed, the rouble will fall, probably quite seriously.
When the stock market was allowed to trade all Russian stocks, but with the other restrictions described above, it unsurprisingly fell.
Russia has also threatened to require payment for its natural gas exports in roubles, but has not actually done that yet.
S&P Global Market Intelligence reckons that the Russian economy is going into its deepest recession since the 1990s, with an expected 20% fall in GDP during 2022. Since oil and gas were Russia's main exports, the loss of sales due to sanctions will be the largest cause of this.
Russian state-controlled TV Channel 1 has been dedicating lately an unusually large portion of time and a prominent position on its 9 PM Moscow Time "Time" ("Время") news program (sorry for saying the word "time" so many times!) to the horrible, horrible inflation in the West and sky-high gas prices. These were explained to the viewers as "caused by oil sanctions against Russia". In my experience of watching "Time" from 1980s until now, they typically have a reason for showing specific segments about the West, unless it is fluff, and gas prices now are far from fluff.
Using deduction, the reason Russian TV Channel 1 shows this segment is because of some negative actual or perceived effect that the oil sanctions are having on Russia itself. It is likely an actual effect; the position and length of the gas price segments speaks of the effect's significance.
There is a bit of misunderstanding in the Question.
This is how economic pressure in more or less democratic countries work: people pressure their elected government to act in a way not hurting the economy. The government has a limited resource of non-listening to people before losing the next elections.
Russia is not much of a democracy. Russia is like 5% democracy, 95% dictatorship supported by oligarchs (numbers made by me using my own knowledge of Russian society).
This is how economic pressure in dictatorships work: The high-rank dictator supporters try to persuade their dictator to act in a way not hurting their income. The dictator may listen to them as long as risks of him becoming a non-dictator are acceptably low.
And now, some interesting part: Oil and gas are disproportionately represented in the Russian government income. While these make up less than 25% of the economy, they bring 39% of what the government can spend.
This keeps the taxes low (good when you want to stay in power), but backfires when the oil/gas export suffers. The government weakens in regard to some oligarchs that are less connected to oil/gas business.
In short, oil export is disproportionately heavy in Russian government decision-making.
This is hard to quantify, but it is worth mentioning that all Russian military exersizes in neighbouring countries happen when the oil market is high.
If we could keep the oil below $50, Russia is a good neighbour. If we can't, limiting the oil trade with Russia is a working second option.
Not in the short term. With current de-facto bans on, like, half of everything else going into Russia, the Russian trade balance will be still positive. Russia actually does not need those money from oil sales unless it can buy something with them.
In the medium term, some noticiable pain will be inflicted on the economy of Russia, mostly by bans on goods going into Russia, but maybe by bans in the other direction to a lesser extent. In the long term, it will be bearable as long as China does not side with the west.
Nothing of this will change Putin's actions. The current sanctions were more or less "priced into" his analysis when he authorized the war, they were not surprising, the sanctions did not work in the past and there is no reason to believe this time will be different (as long as China does not side with the west).
On a short term seems that it just does not, because the oil prices have surged up, compensating. Also, some sanctions have the transition period. During that period there are no actually any restrictions applied yet but everyone buys like mad (last time to buy!). But this may not be forever.
Long term, another question. The price bubbles have a habit to burst.
No effect on bottom line. As mentioned by alamar and fraxinus elsewhere
Russian Weekly Oil Exports Drop 26% as Buyers Look Elsewhere Still, the Russian budget could escape much of the pain thanks to the rally in crude prices and the cheaper ruble.
-Bloomber News
