Sanctions Story

 I noticed a short business related story over Russia two days ago.  The way it went....a non-European/non-American cellphone tower company had some Russian contact them and asking about spare/used equipment.  

The story went to the angle that up until the sanctions business occurred in Russia over the war....they utilized the services/hardware of a number of 'western' companies.  Now?  They are stuck with whats in use and waiting for serious breakdowns to occur.

What you will start to notice...probably by the end of summer....a couple of towns now report that cellphone coverage is now effective in only 50-percent of the towns, because breakdowns have occurred in other cities, and assets have been 're-deployed' for the more important cities.  By late fall....probably 10-percent of Russian towns will report limited to marginal cellphone coverage....with people negative about paying for service that they can't connect to.

This lead me  to this moment of pondering.  Are there scenarios that would get the attention of the Duma and finally open some 'we-gotta-movie-Putin-out' scenario?

These are my five suggested scenarios:

1.  Airport 'X' is expecting a plane to land at 4 PM.  The plane doesn't arrive.  Calls go out and the question comes up when they last saw them on radar.  The airport has to admit that their long-range radar (out to 120 miles) was re-deployed to another more important airport two weeks ago.....so they only had a short-range radar (good out to 20 miles).  

An hour passes, and some lumberjack crew calls in to report smoke in some region.  Another two hours pass and they finally find the plane.  Without the radar maintenance/parts....airline travel is sketchy and more dangerous.

2. A city water reservoir reports issues with their filtering system, and that the water is reaching a contamination stage.  The filtering system?  Made in France, and the filters aren't arriving to ensure safe water through the system.

3.  A series of 500 car accidents occur in a month-long period.....due to driving with faulty brakes (European cars).  No replacement parts or cheap Chinese knock-off brakes.

4.  Cancer treatment clinics report that various treatment plans in Russia have reached a stage where the drugs needed or the analysis systems used....can't be provided or function.  

5.  A series of power sub-stations fail in the midst of summer heat, and spare equipment (usually from Europe) isn't readily available.  So you have a town of 17k residents who go through nine days of zero power....while a jerry-rigged system is put into place with black-market equipment to bring them back on line.

There are probably a thousand scenarios like this....if you sit and think how connected things were in 2021. Putin or any of his high-level people grasping this?  I seriously doubt it.