I recently read Anne Applebaum's searing Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. Applebaum, a writer for The Atlantic and a Senior Fellow of the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, knows European authoritarianism well. She lives in Poland with her Polish politician husband, who opposes the nation's accretive illiberalism. Her excellent book deals as well with the "seductive lure" of newly rooted American authoritarianism.
Applebaum was among the 2000s' neoconservatives, but she seems to have tempered that unfortunate inclination. She's a firm moderate in her politics — as I recall it was Applebaum who once wrote that the middle is where the fun is, because it's situated between the clashing extremes — a superb writer and presently more down-to-earth about the U.S.'s handling of foreign conflicts.
I strongly recommend Twilight of Democracy. Her work brims with logic, history and intelligent analysis while staying out of the weeds. "How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document ... is Applebaum's answer." —Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny
Today she remarked on merely one way Putin has been able to laugh at Western sanctions.
The men bombing supermarkets, torturing POWs, murdering civilians - all of them are being paid directly with money paid to Russia by Europeans.
— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) July 31, 2022
On a related note, there's also this from a Guardian article earlier today:
"Though western sanctions on hi-tech components that could be used for military purposes have made things slower and more difficult, Russia appears to have found ways to evade them. The US authorities have blacklisted dozens of companies for helping the Russian military dodge sanctions since the invasion."
Criminals and cutthroats always find paths that can circumvent sanctions, no matter how stringently enforced.