Sanctions against Russia: Weak Enforcement and Patchy Alignment

Written by Alberto Ornaghi (BSc PPE)

Over two years ago, on the 24th of February 2022, Russia began its “special military operation” in Ukraine. Known to the rest of the world as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this event marked a highly significant escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war, which began in 2014 with fighting in Crimea and subsequent Russian annexation of the peninsula. Although Moscow’s defence staff believed they could overrun the Ukrainian army in just a few days, they found themselves faced with a far stronger enemy than expected (Walker 2023). The conflict has since escalated further, turning into a proxy war with a bloc of Western countries supporting Ukraine, and rogue states such has Iran and North Korea supporting Russia. The West responded to Russia’s attacks by offering Ukraine significant military, financial and humanitarian support, such as France offering billions in donations and loans to supplement the Ukrainian government’s budget (Kiel Institute 2025). Most importantly, the bloc supporting Ukraine enacted sweeping sanctions against the Russian state, its officials, and key oligarchs. Sanctions are the main tool states use for wartime foreign policy, with their purpose being to weaken the enemy state’s economy. There is however reason to believe that sanctions against Russia have not been effective, and hence Western states should rethink how this tool is deployed. In this article, I begin by defining the concept of sanctions, as well as two benchmarks against which to evaluate their effectiveness. I then offer some examples of these sanctions and evaluate their effects on Russia. I will argue that, in an increasingly multipolar world, the effectiveness of sanctions may decrease as targeted states are able to look towards non-Western powers and power blocs for economic, political and military alliances.

Sanctions are the “withdrawal of customary trade and financial relations for foreign- and security-policy purposes”(Masters 2024). They may take various forms, such as travel bans, arms embargoes, trade restrictions and more. They are used to “coerce, deter, punish or shame entities that endanger [the sanctioning country’s] interests or violate international norms of behaviour” (Masters 2024). In Russia’s case, they are being used to expose a weaker enemy, constrain the growth of Russia’s military-industrial complex, and, most importantly, damage the economy to weaken Putin and his state. I thus define sanctions as ineffective if they have little to no detrimental effect on the target’s economy, and minimally effective if they damage the economy to expose a weaker enemy but fall short of having a significant impact on the regime itself. I then define sanctions as fully effective if they weaken the economy to the point of forcing a change in the ruling regime.

In the case of Russia, it seems clear that Western sanctions have not yet been fully effective: Putin’s grip on the Kremlin remains as strong as it's ever been. Over the past decade, Putin has murdered or imprisoned effectively all his most vocal opposition, culminating with the death of Alexey Navalny in 2024, and of the mercenary-turned-insurrectionist Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023 (CNN 2024). The non-governmental polling company Levada Center reports that over half of Russians strongly support the war in Ukraine, and Putin’s approval rates stand at over 80%. Although this data is dubious, at the very least it shows that Putin can create an appearance of approval that legitimises his regime domestically.

Although its clear that Western sanctions have not been fully effective, have they been at least minimally effective? In March 2022, shortly after Russia’s invasion began, various organisations severely downgraded their growth expectations for Russia’s economy: the World Bank, European Development Bank and the Russian Finance Ministry all projected a 10% contraction of GDP in 2022. Although initial data indicated this projection was correct, with Russia’s economy contracting at an annualised rate of 21.8% in the quarter following their invasion of Ukraine, longer term data is more mixed (Caprile and Delivorias 2023). In 2022, IMF data shows that Russia successfully mitigated the blow from sanctions and closed the year with only a 1.2% real-terms contraction, returning to growth of 3.6% in both 2023 and 2024. Although rates will be lower, the IMF expects Russia to continue growing each year from 2025 to 2029. This data shows quite clearly that sanctions have failed to cause an outright contraction in Russia’s economy: cumulatively, at current prices, Russia’s GDP has grown 20.5% since end of 2021. Inflation however has proven more problematic for Russia: it spiked to 13.7% in 2022 as a direct result of sanctions, dropping later to 5.9% and 7.9% in 2023 and 2024 respectively, remaining significantly above the Russian Central Bank’s target of 4% (IMF 2025). With respect to trade, export to Russia from Western countries fell very significantly, hampering Russia’s ability to obtain key inputs and technology. Moscow has however largely been able to make up for this shortfall in imports by relying more on non- aligned states, significantly increasing their imports from BRICS countries, especially China and India. Furthermore, Russia’s main source of income in commodity exports, which make up 60% of Russian state revenues, is largely exempt from sanctions. In this sector, Russia has enjoyed a significant boom: increases in fertiliser prices caused revenues to increase 70%, and increases in oil and LNG prices helped the state finance its budget deficit. Although the positive impact of oil for Russia is decreasing as prices stabilise and sanction efforts hit the energy sector, it will remain a strong point for the Eurasian state. Looking at aggregate level data, and especially GDP numbers, sanctions have had little to no impact on Russia’s economy. This is however not because the sanctions themselves have not worked, but rather because Russia has made arrangements to mitigate their impact. Firstly, the sanctions did not surprise Russia, and Putin has been preparing the state’s economy since the Crimean annexation (Caprile and Delivorias 2023). Secondly, Russia has successfully circumvented sanctions by using its partnerships with non-Western-aligned states.

To study the effect of specific forms of sanctions and the impact of non-aligned states, I look at the cases of chip and semiconductor export bans, exclusion for the SWIFT payments system and, most importantly, energy-related sanctions. Looking at sanctions on a more micro level is key because, although the may have failed to cause a problematic contraction at the aggregate level, they may have been successful at weakening specific important sectors.

First, with respect to export bans, computer chips provide a clear example. Given their importance in weapons systems, they were immediately subjected to import bans. Russia’s domestic chip manufacturing capabilities are lacking, with their technology estimated to be fifteen years behind the US’s. In 2022, Russia’s overreliance on chip imports caused their stocks to drop, but supplies have since rebounded to prewar levels. They accomplished this through loopholes such as importing non-controlled electronics goods and repurposing their chips, by using intermediaries and neutral country ports, and, most importantly, by leveraging relationships with non-Western states. An important partner is China, which is a key player in global chip supply chains. In fact, in the fourth quarter of 2022 alone, over 75% of chip sales to Russia were conducted through a Chinese intermediary compared to 22% the prior year. Further, exports to Russia of American chips through Hong Kong and China have increased ten times from pre-2022 levels (Feldstein and Brauer 2024). The case of chips and semiconductors provides a clear example of the failures of sanctions: these represent perhaps the most vital component in modern weaponry, and, through loopholes and non-Western- aligned states, Russia can obtain as many as they wish with relative ease.

Second, a measure which was billed as a particularly extreme action to take against Russia, was disconnecting its main banks from the SWIFT international payments system. SWIFT is a protocol that over 11,000 financial institutions use to facilitate transactions, with over $5 trillion in funds movement occurring each day through this system. This tactic was initially seen as a “nuclear option”, with former Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin suggesting that removal from SWIFT could shrink Russia’s economy by 5%. In March 2022, a first set of seven Russian banks were cut off from the system, with a further three added shortly after (BBC 2022, European Council 2024). Included in these sanctions is Sberbank, Russia’s state- owned financial institution and the country’s largest lender. However, this move has failed to have the impact that was originally expected for three key reasons. First, due to its importance in energy-related transactions, Gazprombank has remained connected to SWIFT, thereby significantly weakening the sanction. Second, Russia expected this move and has been developing its own financial messaging system, the SPFS, since 2014. Although small, the system works and is becoming more important in both day-to-day and strategic transactions. Third, non-aligned states have once again come to Russia’s rescue: India is in talks to connect to SPFS, and China has connected Moscow to its CIPS transactions system. These moves not only allow Russian entities to continue to efficiently engage in financial transactions, but they also allow them to do so in roubles, thereby bolstering the currency. Thus, even the EU’s “nuclear option” has proved a limited success.

Finally, Western states have attempted to curtail Russian oil and gas revenues. NATO countries imposed an embargo on Russian oil, a price cap of $60/bbl on Urals oil (the lower- quality Russian equivalent of Brent crude) and, in most recent weeks, sanctions against over 180 tankers and various intermediaries in the oil trade. Although the impact of these most recent measure remains to be seen, the impact of prior sanctions has been limited. Once again, their failure is due to patchy enforcement and the actions of non-aligned states. The oil price cap and embargo work only if intermediaries from sanctioning countries enforce them. So, for example, Greek shipping services must agree to the price cap and enforce it themselves if it to work. Russia can however use shipping services (and other intermediaries) who do not enforce the cap (Caprice, Delivorias 2023). In fact, until just recently, 183 non- sanctioned tankers were transporting over 1.5 million barrels per day of Russian oil sold above the price cap (Seigle 2025). These ships however are now sanctioned through a new American package, and hence may no longer be able to transport oil. Furthermore, various European countries such as Germany and Poland, which were particularly reliant on Russian oil, enjoyed exemptions from these sanctions, and hence kept demand for Russian oil afloat. For the first year of sanctions, petroleum-derived products were also exempt, leaving a further avenue for Russian energy revenues open (Caprice, Delivorias 2023). Beyond issues of enforcement, the actions of non-aligned states are again key: Russia found ample new buyers for their oil, with China and India purchasing over €175bn of crude oil since EU sanctions came into effect (Raghunandan, Katinas 2025). Although the sanctions have not been as effective as hoped, they have successfully decreased the Kremlin’s oil revenues. In 2024, revenues from fossil fuel exports decreased 5% year-on-year, while export volumes dropped 6%. Overall, daily Russian oil revenues fell from £1.25bn in March 2022 to £652mn in December 2024. Although the drop has been large, revenues have stablilised around £650mn per day since the beginning of 2023, so their absolute level remains very significant for the Kremlin’s budget, and EU countries continued to import €2.5bn of Russian fossil fuels in December 2024. Therefore, despite oil-related sanctions having a significant effect, they have fallen short of truly decimating Russian oil revenues, although the effect of the most recent sanctions remains to be evaluated.

Looking at the sum of evidence, both on the aggregate level and at the level of individual policies, it seems that sanctions against Russia have not had the expected effect. Overall, I would argue that they have been ineffective at the aggregate level, with respect to financial transactions and with respect to chip imports, while they have been minimally effective with respect to fossil fuel revenues. Despite the sanctions, Russia remains highly capable to wage war against Ukraine, and Putin’s grip on power remains strong. If Western allies are truly serious about supporting Ukraine in its fight for freedom, they must rethink the implementation of sanctions. The examples given above show how difficulties with enforcement and the actions of non-aligned states have dampened their effect, so NATO countries should give these elements greater weight. For example, sanctioning countries should look more closely at the issue of “shadow tankers”, through which Russia can transport their oil with impunity and circumvent the price cap. Furthermore, the West should seriously consider imposing sanctions on countries that continue to aid Russia, such as China, India and Türkiye, thereby decreasing the Kremlin’s ability to leverage these lucrative alliances. The current state of sanctions against Russia shows that they are not a silver bullet for wartime foreign policy, and their implementation must be considered carefully if they are to be effective.