Oh no. They love referendums. So long as they can control the outcome. (C.f. Crimea).

if you look back i think i was one of the first to question how effective the sanctions would be given their knock-on effects.

Sanctions? The problem is that Russia blocks all food exports from UA, there was not much of a planting / sowing season in UA because of the invasion and now Russia is stealing vast volumes of grains from UA. It is also Russia that has threatened to sell grains only to "friendly" nations.

On top, there are serious supply problems due to a poor harvest in China.

But yes, it is all the fault of the West.

The EU is largely self-sufficient for many agricultural products so there will not be food shortages, there may well be price increases.

It's a retaliation so he is right The west is trying to starve them financially, so the Russians are withholding their food and trying to literally starving them.

The west is providing weapons to kill russians in Ukraine, so the russians are taking the resources of Ukraine which will cause massive damage to the west as well

Europe may be self sufficient to an extent but the quality of life will suffer greatly as the quality of food decreases and the price of everything explodes. Discontent will rise and there will be major political implications.

If you thought Marie LePen was scary.....

only if we have fertilizer.

If that were the reasoning he'd also no longer sell fuels to the rest of Europe (outside of long term contracts).

seems like it is the reasoning as russia has said they won't continue food supplies unless the west eases its sanctions.

And if we look back just a few posts we see:

You predicted the sanctions would have a knock on effect (which any idiot could have predicted, so no kudos to you there), and then when evidence comes of those knock on effects, you laugh.

Not only are you displaying classic troll behaviour, it also makes you come across as less than empathic - or indeed a decent human being.

Therefore he does want to sell.

You're obviously making my point.

Fixed that for you.

all the ukrainians hiding in azovstal have now surrendered, apparently over 2400 including their commanders.

I heard it on the news, it was also reported that they are going to be put on trail with one (or more) Russian politician or commander wanting the death sentence.
I think that perhaps their outcome will depend on the war crime trial for Russian POW´s in Kiew.

Which is exactly what Putin wants. Kremlin is working on Europe's "discontent" for a very long time. Basically since he took over the power and has put his own oligarchs in top places in economy and money started pouring into his pockets, and he he had the means to support all sorts of scary movements, mainly extremist-nationalistic and revisionist ones. Russia has supported every discontent they could in Europe, as well as Brexit. Russia has given large wings to characters that want to turn the clock back with like one hundred years (or more....maybe back to Middle Ages). Russia has mingled with our politics and politicians for a too long a time. Russia has used refugees as a weapon to destabilise EU and that is being spoken out loud only now. The friendship between China and Russia is also something worth discussing but maybe not here..
In the meantime EU has thought Russia is on a bumpy road to democracy, and even though they do it their own way, they're basically rational guys with whom you could cooperate. The most important countries in EU (economically and politically) have to justify now why so much respect and trust in a regime that killed its opponents abroad, in the streets of Moscow, imprisoned them after fake trials, and one that has changed its own constitution, laws in order to remain in power for...ever. The collective West is responsible for financing, courting and compromising excessively with a blood thirsty regime. Sanctions came a bit too late and are a bit too little. The collective West is not responsible though for the war in Ukraine, that's only Russia's doing.
They can stop it anytime if they don't like these sanctions.

Russia has published a new list of 963 Americans banned from entering the country.

Mystical! At least four on the list, like John Mccain, are marked as dead (скончался) with the date of death.
Oddities, the list includes Biden's son Hunter but not his daughter Ashley Biden and not Trump.

No doubt Trump is in line for the Order of the Red Banner for his services in spreading discontent amongst his western allies during his presidency.

but the problems mentioned with discontent are mostly due to the incompetence of western leaders. putin merely exploits them.

... or rapidly re-learn how to grow food with less or without fertilizer.

Oh, we already do know. But the harvests will be smaller and thus prices will skyrocket.
The whole political system in Europe relies on the availability of very cheap food.
Most people don’t even know anymore how to properly cook.

In reality, what’s going to happen is that we’ll rather starve to death 20m+ people in the 3rd world than changing our habits.

I know people hate Greta Thunberg, but this is the scenario that she was seeing.