Exactly this! I mentioned this back in 2022 when the war started. This is exactly the reason why sanctions don't work and will never work on them.
Yes, sanctions will work on a country where people have high living standards and quality of life, it won't work in country like Russia. Putin will do everything to keep quality of life high in Moscow and Saint Peterburg but the rest of the Russia has never lived well and it doesn't matter for them.
Why did US allow Russia to do what it does? First, there was war against Georgia, then Against Crimea (Ukraine) and then again, against the whole Ukraine.
Not sure about Ukraine but regarding Georgia the US could not do anything. Neither militarily nor legally because AFAIK after USSR got dissolved the smaller states that declared independence signed some sort of agreement (I've forgotten the name) with Russia that allows Russians to do these things!
What? How can a country declare independence and allow Russia to invade it at the same time? That doesn't make any sense, there is no way there was declaration that allowed Russia to do that sort of things.
If NATO troops had fought on the side of Ukraine, this war would have ended with Russia's defeat long ago. Ukraine receives various types of assistance in defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity from many states, including NATO members, but this assistance, especially weapons and military equipment, is very weak and does not allow Ukraine to achieve a relatively quick victory over the aggressor that attacked it.
But Russia has nuclear weapons and that's why NATO can't help it. NATO is much powerful than Russia and if Russia is about to lose, then what's there to stop it from using Nuclear Weapons? Imagine you have a bomb and 5 guys are beating you to death, won't you use the bomb to kill yourself and your enemies? You are dying anyway, so why should you leave your enemies alive when you have the chance to die with including them?
And now an interesting question - who is Ukraine fighting with now? Because Russia does not have enough strength to seize the relatively small Ukraine, it uses elite units of the North Korean troops on the battlefield against Ukraine, as well as armored vehicles, air defense systems and millions of shells from North Korea. Therefore, in fact, there is a war between Russia and North Korea against Ukraine.
Elite units of North Korea? Elite? They are as Elite as Russian troops.