Bloomberg: “Instead of a sweeping package that crippled top Russian banks, cut its financial transactions off from the global economy, or personally singled out Vladimir Putin — the U.S. and its allies settled on a modest ‘first tranche’ of penalties. Markets responded with a shrug, underwhelmed by the tit-for-tat approach.”
New York Times: “Putin’s decision on Monday to press ahead with the troop movement suggests that he has concluded that the costs of new sanctions are tolerable, despite U.S. talk of ‘massive consequences’ for his country.”