At a certain point, all of these sanctions are going to hit Russia hard. My question is, will Putin escalate things further and create a bigger crisis?
In my opinion the EU and USA are way to soft for Russia right now. They need to hit Russia hard right now, not at a certain point. It might be to late by then.
After Russia is cut off from SWIFT - here is a huge hammer that can really make a difference. There are a few thousand regime supporters that are propping Putin up without whom he would not be able to reign. It's the oligarchs, and their families. Some of them are in Russia but most of the families are in the West - London, France, US. Most of their enormous liquid assets and real estate are also in the West, they are not fools to keep them in Russia. Western intelligence sources know every one of those and every account/real estate holding. ALL need to be sanctioned, accounts and holdings frozen and those who do not have Western citizenship expelled to Russia. Putin will not be able to continue his regime without the support of these people.
Exactly. Right now all means should be used. Maximum economic pain for the murderous regime. Anything else won't achieve the objective.
Putin wouldn't care. It has China as its ATM machine. If you want Russia to feel the heat, China needs to be sanctioned and cut off from SWIFT too. LOL