A new study by Swiss researchers suggests that an early and credible threat of tough economic sanctions could have prevented the war in Ukraine. +Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox The researchers carried out a “counterfactual” experiment using computer-aided modelling, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) announced on Tuesday. A virtual world was created to serve as a comparison to the real world. The study was led by Mathias Thoenig from the University of Lausanne and published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research. The model compared the actual course of events with a hypothetical scenario. In this scenario, the West would have threatened Russia with sanctions as early as 2021 when Russian troops were deployed on the Ukrainian border. The simulated measures included restricting access to international financial services and export bans on sensitive technologies. The aim of the analysis was to show whether such a threat could have changed …