There are people who hate parts of their body, such as their right foot or left eye. The technical term used to describe this phenomenon is Body Integrity Identity Disorder; it is the pathological desire for a disability. It is only satisfied when, for example, the right foot has been amputated. 

By the same token, for some time now, many Germans have been obsessed with divesting themselves of Russian gas and oil immediately and completely. They argue that we must not continue to "fill Putin's war chest." 

Other quick-fix alternatives are not available, which is precisely why many see an import ban as an almost heroic act of solidarity with Ukraine.

Will it impress Putin?

The nonchalance that characterizes the demand to simply do without half of all gas and coal imports, as well as about one third of the previous oil quantities, while completely ignoring the consequences, is unbearable. Even worse, however, is the perceived connection between our warm homes in Germany and the suffering of the Ukrainians.

It is misguided to believe that donning warm sweaters at home, filling up on exorbitantly expensive gas and grinning and bearing price increases across the board will put a spanner in Russian President Vladimir Putin's works.

And it's almost ironic to hear Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens, of all people, who has not minced her words criticizing the Russian regime, speaking out against an immediate import ban on fossil energy sources and appealing to the public's common sense.

Without Russia's natural resources, she says, German kindergartens would remain cold and power failures could be the order of the day. And that would play straight into Putin's hands.

Putin's deliberate calculations

The invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war is utterly irrational and megalomaniacal. Still, let's not kid ourselves: The Kremlin is not made up of idiots incapable of doing math. On the contrary. They have very likely factored in the impact of the sanctions, the criticism from the ranks of the oligarchs and the public protests.  

Putin has turned a blind eye to the plight of thousands of innocent victims. He is prepared to turn his own soldiers into cannon fodder. He also knows that an entire generation is emerging in Ukraine that will be permanently hostile to Russia — and with good reason.

He also knows the West sees him as a pariah. The only thing Putin is afraid of is losing this war. But this bloodbath will most certainly not end if Germany bans Russian gas imports to its own detriment.

Today's movers and shakers in Germany belong, almost without exception, to a generation that has known only peace, prosperity and democracy. That is good.

It doesn't come as a surprise, therefore, that they know little about war, misery and dictatorship.

I, on the other hand, as a child of the 1990s in what was then the rest of Yugoslavia (consisting only of Serbia and Montenegro), am all too familiar with what that means. Back then, too, the West claimed that its sanctions were aimed solely at President Slobodan Milosevic and his regime.

But that was just wishful thinking: the sanctions triggered hyperinflation. Our reality was that we carried around 500 billion dinar bills (500 dinars = €4.25/$4.70 at today's rate) for which you could buy next to nothing in empty supermarkets.

Sanctions are like cluster bombs

That aside, today's Russia won't succumb to that level of misery, not least due to its good relations with China and India. Putin himself is sitting comfortably in his golden bunker. The ordinary people in Russia, on the other hand, will suffer both from Putin's dictatorship and from Western sanctions. 

Comprehensive sanctions are like cluster bombs — they always hit the wrong people. Suitable merely as a means of revenge, they are hardly appropriate to bring about political change.

An import ban on Russian raw materials would be nothing more than a very expensive symbolic act — a testament to our own helplessness.

The desire to do so is understandable. No one in Germany wants to trigger World War III. Showing backbone and the willingness to accept sacrifices in the face of Russian aggression is one thing. However, rushing headlong into our fate and freezing in our cold apartments without any prospect of success is quite another.

This article was originally published in German.