You are barking up the wrong tree if you want an intelligent debate on Putin from Russians. All they see is propaganda. Unless you are talking to a Russian that lives outside of Russia, you are going to hear things like "MH17 is a US/Ukrainian conspiracy" and "the EU and US are responsible for the illegal coup in Ukraine". You would get more intelligence out of a Tea Party Republican debating immigration reform than you will asking a Russian about Putin.

It could be a lot worse too. Why can't everyone just get along? Because that's not how things work. The world always had a leader. Nowadays, it's the NATO countries (more specifically the USA) but it is changing to the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). That change has been lead by China (the future world leader) and Russia (the most proactive country in the change). Although this is inevitable (once the BRICS will just get more and more powerful in the course of time and no matter what), the West is logically not willing to give up that easily. The Ukrain's enticement from the European Union and the social disorder sponsored by the US are some examples of the West fighting back towards the easiest target (Russia), since China is nearly untouchable.

Hereupon, what do you consider to be the "normal" that you want to go back to? US domination? Maybe the same was thought about the UK empire when it started to get weaker and lost the dominance to the USA. Normality is in constant change. Nothing lasts forever.

But that is not an effect/goal in itself. Both economical coercions and military force are only means to reach other goals, at least in the official narrative.

To me this is hardly more than an empty propaganda phrase without any real meaning, like "Change!" or "Yes we can!". I mean, "damaging" can mean everything and nothing - for example, "the west" is clearly "damaging" russia by imposing economic sanctions, right? So if "discouraging a country from damaging another country" was a justified reason for imposing sanctions, shouldn't the other countries in the world now impose sanctions on EU/USA etc., according to that logic?

But anyway, I think what you're saying comes down to the same that I said: Economic sanctions are meant to influence the policy of a certain country. That is the desired "effect". But as I've said, studies have found that this only works in about 4% of all cases, so sanctions are ineffective in most cases. Instead of influencing a country's policy, they usually just hurt the civil population.

I don't really understand what you're trying to say with this, I don't really see the connection between the amount of WW2 deaths and the probability of economic sanctions being "effective". If anything, it would seem to stress my point: That imposing sanctions on russia was a stupid idea because it likely won't have the desired effects - because the russian population is "accustomed to suffer" anyway...

Cutting off your nose to spite your face. The Soviet Union struggled with attempts at Autarky, Russia now heading in that direction would be suicide

Is Russia really trying to control blogs in the country?

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/05/07/3435292/what-its-like-to-use-the-internet-in-russia/

Most definitely, they are.  They are trying to control ALL access to news and information in the country...

Russia is shooting themselves in the foot. They are isolationg every major power just so they can continue their onslaught against Ukraine.

The whole idea of all actions taken within last few years is not to follow the same route as its losing strategy longterm. That should be rather obvious without any in-depth analysis, said sactions doesn't change much here. In fact it is the States who is playing proactive role in current political crisis, while Russia is among the forces who is desperately trying to keep status quo, but imo will eventually fail in that. Understanding that it won't end without a war or its equivalent is growing.

The only things they should be sanctioning, then, are products that they can get easily from sources other than the West. To do otherwise for the moment would be bad: focus on building competitiveness in Russian business and you wouldn't have to worry about needing western goods in most cases.

I really don't think these sanctions will do much good on either side. Sanctions against Russia won't work because Putin already has a lot of support over there and all he has to say is "The West is to blame for our unfortunate situation". He could then convince Russians that he's the only one who can stop the West from getting their way, making him even more powerful than before. This is how Fidel Castro had been able to maintain how power in Cuba for so long before his retirement. Russian sanctions towards the west (or at least the USA) won't work because it'll only effect a small number of Americans. Most people won't feel the effect of this.

This won't solve anything. We'll either have a pro-Western patsy in Ukraine or a Russian patsy since nobody apparently believes in self determination amongst nations anymore. I would say the U.N. should declare all nations to stay out of Ukraine's affairs save for trading and have security guards around the boarders of the country, but unfortunately, the U.N. is pathetic because it is ruled by the security council which happens to have, the US, Britain, France, Russia, and China as permanent members with veto powers, meaning that a vote for such a measure would never take place.

So for right now, we'll have to hope for the best, most peaceful outcome.