From banking to sports to vodka, Russia's isolation grows

Russia has been abruptly cut off from the larger world on multiple fronts

It’s a globalized world — a planet stitched together by intricate supply chains, banking, sports and countless other threads of deep connection. Until it isn’t.

Exhibit A: Russia this week, abruptly cut off from the larger world on multiple fronts. Its ability to bank internationally has been curtailed. Its participation in major international sports is crumbling. Its planes are restricted over Europe. Its vodka may no longer be welcome in multiple U.S. states. Even Switzerland, whose very name is shorthand for neutrality, is carefully turning its back on Vladimir Putin.

In barely three days, Russia has become an international outcast because of its invasion of Ukraine, and its leader is finding himself with fewer and fewer foreign friends. What's more, the actions against Moscow are happening in diverse, far-reaching ways that are remarkable for — and in some cases helped along by — the extremely connected world in which we live.

“Something has happened here. It has cascaded in ways no one could have envisioned three or four days ago,” said Andrew Latham, a professor of international relations at Macalester College and a geopolitics expert. “It’s really a strange, strange thing to be watching.”