As the sanctions pile up on Russia, you have to hope this economic siege based on deprivation of goods, services and demand doesn’t end up like the famous siege of Leningrad in WWII. Those last 900 days saw the Nazi German army and their co-conspirators — the Finns — lose out!

Britannica.com revealed how it ended: “Soviet offensives in early 1943 ruptured the German encirclement and allowed more copious supplies to reach Leningrad along the shores of Lake Ladoga. In January 1944, a successful Soviet offensive drove the Germans westward from the city’s outskirts, ending the siege.”

The blockade meant “650,000 Leningrader lives in 1942 alone, mostly from starvation, exposure, disease, and shelling from distant German artillery”.

You have to hope the Russian people aren’t prepared to put up with this sort of economic siege to placate Vladimir Putin.

The Australian newspaper says “Russia reels from sanctions,” but what exactly are they?

Here are the sanctions and implications for the people of Russia:

• The ruble has collapsed. It has gone from 79 rubles to the US dollar to 109, which is about a 38% depreciation.

• There are runs on banks, as Russians have tried to stash their cash elsewhere.

• The Russian stock market is closed.

• The Russian stocks ETF has dropped 27%.

• Russian banks can’t use the international system of money transference called SWIFT, which the world’s banks co-own.

• The ever-neutral Switzerland has joined the EU imposing sanctions on Russia.

• Billionaire oligarchs such as Mikhail Fridman risked speaking out against Putin and State Capitalism.

• The Federal Government’s Future Fund and industry super funds such as Australian Super and Rest are dumping Russian investments in bonds, oil, gas and banking assets.

• But the AFR says that “Russia’s central bank ordered market brokers to reject foreign clients trying to sell Russian securities".

• Bitcoin rose over 7% overnight, which suggests investors are taking on risk again.

• Gold’s price is spiking.

• Cyber security has been brought sharply into focus as Russia is expected to escalate hacking and ETFs based on hacking are on the rise.

• Graincorp’s share price is up 7% in five days and 13% since early February.

• Petrol prices will keep on rising — Woodside Petroleum’s share price rose over 2% yesterday and is up 14% this month!

• BP will get out of its near 20% shareholding of Russian oil company Rosneft, which brought 20% of BP’s profit last year. That will potentially be a $25bn challenge for BP.

• And Dan Murphy’s is dropping Russian vodka.

Surprisingly, the ASX futures says we’re expecting a 34-point rise at the start of trading today!

It’s a nightmare for those trying to dump Russian assets. They might not be able to, which could mean their losses will be reduced if they’re forced to hang on and wait for a political solution to this crazy war.

This war started on February 21 and since then, our stock market has fallen only 2.5%. Part of this smaller-than-expected fall is because the likelihood of interest rates being hiked up too quickly (starting in March in the US) is less likely.

You have to hope this Russian standoff with the world doesn’t last 900 days. If it does, the international economic implications might end up surprising many of us.

Let’s hope these sanctions, effectively placed on the Russian people, work and they prevail on Vlad the Invader, so a political solution eventuates.

When people ask me what I think will happen, I say I don’t know. I simply point to history, which says these geopolitical crises don’t have a long-lasting impact on the stock market, which implies their economic effects tend not to be widespread.

That said, the oil and its price implications on global growth can’t be easily dismissed. And that’s where this war could surprise the world.