But the steps the West has taken so far—especially banning foreign funding of Russian debt, barring large Russian banks from doing any transactions in dollars, Euros, pounds, or yen, and limiting exports of high-tech equipment—are likely to make a major economic dent. Sanctioning the elites could also have a big impact over time, as well. These elites own property in London and New York, vacation on the Riviera, send their children to Western schools. If their assets are seized and they have no access to dollars, Euros, pounds, or yen, their lives will be miserable. Will they take out their misery on Putin? That’s the hope, but it’s not clear how their discontent translates into political rebellion.

Earlier on Thursday, as the country’s stock market tanked for the second day in a row, Putin held a televised meeting with Russian big businessmen. Alexander Shokhin, the group’s leader, told Putin. “Everything should be done to demonstrate as much as possible that Russia remains part of the global economy and will not provoke…global negative phenomena on world markets.” He seemed nervous while making the statement—a strong, if implicit critique of Putin’s policies—but the fact that he said this at all should raise eyebrows.

In the long run, Putin’s adventure in Ukraine may prove a gigantic blunder. Even now, it has thrown an enormous wrench in Putin’s broad foreign-policy strategy, which, for the past decade, has been to intensify fissures within the EU and to drive wedges between Washington and its NATO allies. Putin’s aggression against Ukraine has patched those fissures, elevated America’s leadership role, and unified the alliance more solidly than at any time since the end of the Cold War.