In the very beginning and hard. Today I don’t think it would do much other than strenghten cooperation within BRICS. They’ve shown they’re resilient together and that China specificlly has enormous leverage over us being the manufacturer of vast number of inputs to our economies. Don’t know whether India has enough of a leverage but I wouldn’t be surprised if they increased reliance on BRICS instead of complying with sanctions. Especially given the nationalist line Modi is pushing domestically.

But again, the game was never really to stop the war. If it was, we could’ve not only applied stronger sanctions in the beginning but also sent all the weapons Ukraine needed in the beginning. Not waffle around about this or that weapon because of X or Y, meanwhile letting so many people die for lack of weapons. That produced an emigration wave which weakened Ukraine economically (and likely benefited ours). Putting all the damage together forced them to sell their resources to the US. And no, it’s not just minerals. What’s happened and what was sold to us are very different. So yeah, I don’t buy for a second Trump’s finger wagging about Ukraine as anything but US trade negotiation tactic.