“Sanctions can be costly, but happily European countries have suffered much less than Russian propaganda makes it out to be. Some have been hit harder than others, the Baltic states in particular, [and] Finland. So we need to stick together. American companies have also been hit. But this is the price we all need to pay if we’re to successfully resist Russian aggression.”

“If it weren’t for sanctions, things would be much worse. And anybody who thinks that it couldn’t be worse in Ukraine simply lacks imagination. Sanctions did two things: They prevented the Russians from going much further, and I think, without the sanctions, the Russians would have gone much further.”

– Daniel Fried, the U.S. State Department’s chief sanctions-policy coordinator, speaking on June 16 to RFE/RL in Prague after a weeklong tour of four Central European states to shore up support for the sanctions regime.