You're right, although Trump was talking about lifting sanctions it seems Congress is going to constrain that. Maybe they've been successful in implementing ways to avoid them. Are they using Bitcoin on the down low?
Discussion
They for sure found ways to avoid the sanctions, as in to trade in spite of them, very successfully.
I wish they were embracing bitcoin... the most helpful they are in that respect is by providing a separate jurisdiction which is unlikely to censor the same stuff as the US or others if it ever came to that. Competing jurisdictions are good, Russian dissidents can run to the US and US ones to Russia. Net effect - more free speech for the world.
Edward Snowden ran to Russia, which goes to say your statement is indeed insightful and raises a good point