I'm not denying anything - I'm asking you for a source where he said that, because I'm genuienly not aware of him doing so.
And like I said, current economic sanctions are worse than anything we've ever used against a developed country in terms of economic punishment. So whatever image you have of Russia in 2014 - now is worse.
>>I just hope it does not push my gas prices over 20 $/gal.
One good source is his speech at the State Of The Union in January of 2015 (though he had been claiming it as soon as they imposed the sanctions in different words perhaps). I am sorry, I thought you are feigning ignorance since you seem to be speaking with authority on the sanctions effect on Russia yet appear to be ignorant of what the POTUS who imposed those sanctions had to say about their effect.
> I don't see how it would.
Figures. As I said further up thread, many people seem to be applying their ignorance to analyze a complex geopolitical situation.
The entire world is not just America you know. I'm not American so I'm not particularly aware of what your president said in 2014. America isn't the only country imposing meaningful sanctions on Russia. I don't think that's ignorance either - you probably don't know what was the Polish presidential stance in 2014 either and I wouldn't call you ignorant because of it.
And I looked up the transcript of the State of The Union address you mentioned and he does indeed say that. Thanks.
Sure I don't even know that Poland had a president. But I don't claim authority i.e. I am not saying "Russia is going to starve this summer because the mighty Polish sanctions deprive it of strategic sunflower seeds" or "Russia is going to crush Poland by sending 10M Africans through the Belarus border!". I just notice that economic claims, especially formulated in such imprecise terms as "tatters" and "rubble" seem to appear the result of political posturing and not an actual analysis of economic effects. There are no effects of the sanctions wrt the campaign in Ukraine, at least ones that I can observe, so I don't see how any hypothetical sanctions could have stopped the hypothetical future military conflict between Russia and NATO.
And like I said, current economic sanctions are worse than anything we've ever used against a developed country in terms of economic punishment. So whatever image you have of Russia in 2014 - now is worse.
>>I just hope it does not push my gas prices over 20 $/gal.
I don't see how it would.