The joke would be funnier if you explained that the same answer was repeatedly given by Yandex when asked why its news service shows only propaganda from a handful of state-controlled sources.
They are all at the mercy of the controlling government.
Turns out their "algorithms" was "where source in state_approved_media"
- Oh really, where?!
- Pretty much everywhere
For there to be punishment, there needs to be sovereignty or control over the punished. To legitimize punishment, you must presuppose that the punishing party has legitimately attained the power to punish; or, which is worse, entirely fail to perceive the existence of a punishing party and think of it as some sort of abstract, background, universal, authority.
And yes, sanctions against oligarch and Russia itself are weakening the aggressor.
And yes, the US is just coercing others into its foreign policy campaign against Russia under the guise of "punishment". The aggressor which most needs weakening is the one that's able to hijack SWIFT and dictate to third parties whom they can trade with.
In this case, "Enemy of my enemy is my friend.". "Not having interest in helping Ukraine" doesn't mean that USA wants to hurt Ukraine. And if it does, well, Russia wants it much more, so it would be still wise for Ukrainians to side with USA. But USA does indeed have one big interest in helping Ukraine. While helping them, they hurt Russia.
> The aggressor which most needs weakening is the one that's able to hijack SWIFT and dictate to third parties whom they can trade with.
Nope, the agressor which most needs weakening is the one actively shooting rockets and killing tens of thousands of civilians in just three months.
> And yes, the US is just coercing others into its foreign policy campaign against Russia under the guise of "punishment"
Nope, it's like everyone wanted to help Russia, so they invested there, bought their gas and oil so that maybe Russia is a good trade partner. But Russia decided that they now are strong enough to invade their neighbour and threaten other neighbours with more violence. Yeah, we should pat Rusia on their head and say "good job invading Ukraine, please don't invade us" while Russia makes threats of further invading left and right while telling everyone that they didn't in fact invade anyone yet.
> US is just coercing others into its foreign policy campaign against Russia under the guise of "punishment".
Nah, there is a lot of push coming from Estonia, Poland, Ukraine itself, Latvia, Czech Republic and so on. This is not even close to US throwing weight in it, no matter how much you wish to twist events that way.
> The aggressor which most needs weakening is the one that's able to hijack SWIFT and dictate to third parties whom they can trade with.
No, it is the one implementing filtering camps, comitting genocide, burning Ukrainian books ...