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- The US and its allies have imposed economic sanctions on Russia following its attack on Ukraine.
- The goal of the sanctions is to isolate Russia, cripple its economy, and retaliate against Putin.
- Here’s what sanctions are, what action has been taken so far, and whether they’re expected to work.
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US, UK, and European Union swiftly imposed a raft of wide-ranging economic sanctions.
These measures, designed to isolate Russia and paralyze its economy, have had a major impact on both regular Russians and the moneyed elite: the ruble is tanking, assets are being frozen, and travel bans are being put in place.
But sanctions are nothing new — in fact, they’re a long-standing tool diplomacy tool that can attempt to curb a country’s behavior and avoid all-out war. Here’s what sanctions are, why they’re being employed now, and whether or not they’re expected to work.
What are sanctions?
Sanctions are the withdrawal of trade or other financial relationships for foreign policy or security reasons, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit US think tank.
Sanctions can take multiple forms, including asset freezes, travel bans, trade restrictions — anything that might cripple an economy or hurt the finances of an individual connected to the government.
Why are Western nations imposing sanctions on Russia?
By imposing sanctions on Russia and many of its wealthiest citizens — those who, in many cases, have the ear of President Vladimir Putin — the US and its allies aim to cut off its financial reserves and retaliate against Putin for invading Ukraine.
“The goal was to maximize the impact on Putin and Russia and minimize the harm on us and our allies and friends around the world,” President Joe Biden told reporters Thursday. “Our interest is in maintaining the strongest unified economic impact campaign on Putin in all history and I think we’re well on the way to doing that.”
What sanctions have already been imposed?
The US, UK, and European Union have collectively imposed hundreds of wide-ranging sanctions since February 22, according to a tracker created by German nonprofit news site Correctiv.
Russian flights have been banned from EU and US airspace. Some of Russia’s largest banks have been cut off from the US financial system, meaning they can’t process important transactions which require the US dollar. The US has frozen hundreds of billions in assets and sanctioned Putin personally.
Other high-profile Russians said to be part of Putin’s inner circle have been sanctioned by the US, UK, and EU and are starting to have their assets frozen or seized. Even historically neutral Switzerland has joined the EU in sanctioning Russia, freezing Putin’s assets and those of other high-ranking Russian officials.
Who is most impacted?
The sanctions have sent Russia’s economy into crisis mode: the value of the ruble plunged and Russia’s stock exchange has been closed since Monday.
For regular Russians, there are already noticeable changes. The government has more than doubled interest rates and raised savings rates by 21% to try to deter people from withdrawing cash. (Russians lined up at ATMs for hours to withdraw US dollars anyway.)
Citizens may end up losing their savings or get transfers for their salaries and pensions, Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance, told Vox. She compared what’s happening now to the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, when many Russians resorted to bartering to get what they needed.
Some wealthy, high-profile Russians, meanwhile, have complained that the sanctions are “groundless and unfair.” Germany on Wednesday reportedly seized a $600 million megayacht belonging to Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov and France said Thursday it seized a $120 million vessel owned by Igor Sechin, CEO of Russian oil giant Rosneft.
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has not yet been sanctioned, but he appears to be looking to offload some of his assets in advance, including luxury real estate in London and Chelsea Football Club, which he’s owned since 2003.
Are there more sanctions to come?
Most likely. The UK is facing increased pressure to sanction Abramovich, and foreign secretary Liz Truss has said the UK has a “hit list” of oligarchs who will be sanctioned. She vowed that there will be “nowhere for any of Putin’s cronies to hide.”
The White House announced Thursday an additional list of Russian oligarchs facing sanctions, which for some includes their wives, children, companies, or assets.
The White House also said Wednesday that it’s open to levying sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas industry. However, as Insider’s Mattathias Schwartz points out, while an embargo on Russian oil and gas would take a massive economic toll on Russia, it would also impact the American economy by pushing up the cost of gas at a time when prices are already high.
Will the sanctions work?
In general, sanctions are nothing new — in fact, some scholars estimate the earliest sanctions date back to Athens in 432 B.C. But the modern iteration of economic sanctions developed between the two world wars, historian Nicholas Mulder wrote in his book, “The Economic Weapon.”
Since then, they’ve been used in a range of cases: For example, when the UN sanctioned Liberia’s authoritarian regime in the early 2000s, and the US sanctioned Cuba or Iran for taking action against Americans, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
But the sanctions against Russia are different, Richard Nephew, a sanctions expert and senior research scholar at Columbia University, told Insider.
“What’s really different is the fact that this is going against an economy as large as Russia,” Nephew said. “You don’t have these sorts of major moves against these kinds of economies because they are so systemically important.”
The sanctions seemed to immediately anger Putin, who called them “illegitimate” and ordered Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces to be on alert, a move that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described as “dangerous rhetoric.”
Opinions are mixed on whether the sanctions will actually work, or whether they will simply punish the people on the ground in Russia. Still, experts emphasize that sanctions are just one of several foreign policy tools, not the only solution.
“Sanctions are an important tool but no panacea,” Richard Haass, the president of the Council of Foreign Relations, tweeted. “They can and will increase the cost to Russia of Putin’s war, and they may well contribute to public disaffection in Russia, but for now what will matter most is what happens on the ground in Ukraine.”
When will they end?
The UK government has said its sanctions could last a decade. The US hasn’t specified what Russia can do to get the sanctions lifted, but promised the measures it imposed “will have a deep and long-lasting effect on the Russian economy and financial system.”
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