One of Russia's top security officials called on Thursday for Russians to mobilise to inflict "maximum harm" on Western societies and infrastructure as payback for increasingly tough sanctions being imposed on Moscow by the U.S. and its allies.
So... The sanctions are tough? You're saying they are having an effect?
Good that we finally get this confirmed.
"We need to (respond). Not only the authorities, the state, but all our people in general. After all, they - the U.S. and its crappy allies - have declared a war on us without rules!,"
This is a lie. The rule that Russia broke was "do not invade neighboring countries and don't murder and rape the civilians".
In his latest comments he spoke of the need to find critical vulnerabilities in Western economies, to target energy, industry, transport, banking and social services, and to stir up social tensions.
Yet again, why focus on this if the Russian economy is booming and sanctions are toothless?
While we can discuss how big the effects of the sanctions on Russia and the Russian economy are, we can conclude that the sanctions have a real tangible and a clearly noticable impact.