Meanwhile, some Russian emigres are actually returning because the sanctions, and general public distrust, are making life quite hard for them in the West.
As a Russian emigre myself, I can say that when you are calling for sanctions, you're calling for people like me to get screwed. Putin and his cronies don't seem too much damaged, on the other hand.
This is always a tough thing. I think the best sanctions are the ones that hurt the sanctioner more than the sanctionee, that way at least there is a clear negation of any such argument and that any kind of damage to the sitting regime is what it is all about.
What doesn't stop to surprise me is that in every occasion that such dictators rise to the top of the foodchain there there is a whole cadre of enablers that can't wait to be part of the machine. Without them it wouldn't get off the ground. But they always exist and they always seem to exist in large enough numbers that these assholes get to make their play, to the bitter end in most cases.
