‘A Whole Appeasement Psychology’

We’ve all heard and read the numerous attempts by defenders of Donald Trump to dismiss the support he received from the Kremlin in 2016 and 2020. Among the many defenses is the numerous sanctions “imposed” on Russia during Trump’s Administration. When it comes to government, we tend to focus on policy announcements; Trump’s defenders use this to their advantage. However, follow-up enforcement is just as important; sanctions that are not enforced are not truly sanctions at all.

Politico did a deep dive on how those sanctions were enforced. In effect, they weren’t:

POLITICO applied generous standards for what cases count, finding 14 criminal cases from January 2014 through February 2022. But some of the cases were only tangentially — if at all — related to Ukraine, had roots in export control violations and other alleged crimes prior to the 2014 invasion and may have been pursued war or no war. In fact, when Hanick’s indictment was unveiled in March 2022, the department curiously touted it as “the first-ever criminal indictment charging a violation of U.S. sanctions arising from the 2014 Russian undermining of democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine.”

Such U.S. prosecutions have spiked in the months since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Prosecutors have filed at least 18 cases involving indictments or charges targeting at least 39 people. But the records also show that the cases often are built on the alleged misdeeds of suspects dating back several years prior — meaning they potentially could have been prosecuted sooner.

POLITICO’s findings support critics who argue that Washington, and the West more broadly, was too lenient toward Russia for too long, especially when it came to Ukraine. Such critics, who include Russian dissidents and Ukrainian activists, say America in particular should have imposed — and enforced — tougher Ukraine-related sanctions and other penalties more often and faster in the wake of the initial 2014 invasion.

“There was a whole appeasement psychology for a long time,” said Bill Browder, a British financier who has tangled with Putin and long argued for a tougher U.S. approach to the Kremlin.

In other words, Putin was getting just what he wanted from Washington: “sanctions” in name only. Among the many obstacles to action…

President Donald Trump appeared to sympathize with Putin.

There you have it. Trump may not have been able to get the sanctions lifted, but he did make sure they weren’t enforced. He helped feed and accelerate what Bill Browder called, “a whole appeasement policy” regarding the Kremlin.

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