I would query though the assertion in the question that "countries in the world are becoming more and more democratic". I'm not sure that's necessarily true.

@uberhaxed The UK government was also not "designed" to be democratic originally, but it's certainly a reasonable question to ask if it has become more or less democratic over time. Likewise for the UN - e.g. if hypothetically an even smaller minority dominated the UN, it'd be fair to say it had become "less democratic".

The Boris Johnson visit was a secret to basically everyone until he actually arrived in Ukraine, doubt the others were though.

There's not just direct crop production by Ukraine/Russia at risk here. Note that "Russia is the world’s leading exporter of fertiliser materials in value terms" according to this.

@Dan My point wasn't that "you should've added palladium as an example of people getting upset". It was that dependency is an extra factor into problems of practicality (with palladium just one example of that factor). Dependency is more than people just being upset.

I think this might be why some people may oppose wider sanctions, but I don't think it really explains why US policymakers wouldn't do them - after all, such sanctions are currently applied to Afghanistan by the US. More likely to be about self-interest than some deep concern for ordinary Russians imo.

Good answer, I'd add that dependency is also a factor into practicality: for example, something like 40% of the world's palladium is produced in Russia, which is a pretty important metal used in many areas like cars and electronics. I doubt that can be switched off overnight.

@einpoklum oh the asset freeze is definitely a fact, I meant more that, rightly or wrongly, that freeze can be interpreted differently by different people, both in terms of its reasoning and its morality - and that how we decide questions like that also impacts our ability to adjudicate future fact claims involving the same actors