I agree but that’s what I’m failing to understand. How does hurting the working class a tiny bit and making their lives harder do anything to stop Putin? Clearly the founder of Lush doesn’t and didn’t feel like it was the right decision at the time. It also not having the intended effect seems like a confirmation that it wasn’t the right decision rather than an indictment.
Bowing to public pressure doesn’t make the public right. If anything, it’s virtue signaling to keep your customer base instead of it being the right thing to do.
It was all part of an effort to economically hurt Russia in response to the war.
Best case scenario was Russia deciding the hit to their economy was not worth the war and back pedaling. No one realistically thought this was going to happen though.
The next best case scenario was for the changes in quality of life for the average Russian would create enough internal pressure that the war would be called off.
This hasn’t happened yet but internal support for the war has been dropping over the last year and some of that is attributed to the dismal state of the Russian economy, which is a direct result of things like Lush pulling out.
And even if neither of these come up fruition, the more Russias economy is damaged the harder it is to fund their war effort. This gives Ukraine a bit more breathing room in their war effort.
While the effect of a single company like Lush is unnoticed, it’s the collective effect of everything from these pullouts, to trade sanctions and other soft power diplomatic plays which total up to a noticable effect.
I agree but that’s what I’m failing to understand. How does hurting the working class a tiny bit and making their lives harder do anything to stop Putin? Clearly the founder of Lush doesn’t and didn’t feel like it was the right decision at the time. It also not having the intended effect seems like a confirmation that it wasn’t the right decision rather than an indictment.
Bowing to public pressure doesn’t make the public right. If anything, it’s virtue signaling to keep your customer base instead of it being the right thing to do.
It was all part of an effort to economically hurt Russia in response to the war.
Best case scenario was Russia deciding the hit to their economy was not worth the war and back pedaling. No one realistically thought this was going to happen though.
The next best case scenario was for the changes in quality of life for the average Russian would create enough internal pressure that the war would be called off.
This hasn’t happened yet but internal support for the war has been dropping over the last year and some of that is attributed to the dismal state of the Russian economy, which is a direct result of things like Lush pulling out.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/12/02/russians-support-of-ukraine-war-collapses-finds-poll
And even if neither of these come up fruition, the more Russias economy is damaged the harder it is to fund their war effort. This gives Ukraine a bit more breathing room in their war effort.
While the effect of a single company like Lush is unnoticed, it’s the collective effect of everything from these pullouts, to trade sanctions and other soft power diplomatic plays which total up to a noticable effect.
With respect, do you really trust poll numbers in a country where speaking out against the war will get you jailed or killed?
If anything, that supports the idea that the poll numbers should be even harder against the war than they are reported.
Great. Putin doesn’t care what the polling says.