Ukraine war, 1 year on: have sanctions against Russia served their purpose?

February 24 is the anniversary of what Russian President Vladimir Putin calls a ‘special military operation’ and what Ukraine and its supporters call an illegal invasion
Moscow has gained hugely from a surge in oil prices, amid measures taken by only around 15 per cent of world’s population to try to hurt its economy to halt the war

Bhavan Jaipragas

Published: 8:00am, 24 Feb 2023

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Britain observes a nationwide moment of silence today to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine.

Across countries in the Western alliance backing Kyiv, one expects that there will be similar commemorative events.

Friday marks not just the anniversary of what Russian President Vladimir Putin termed a “special military operation” – now a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions of Ukrainians.

It is also a year since the European Union unleashed the first of a torrent of economic sanctions against Moscow.

In an emergency summit held as the war began, EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell labelled the first round of measures “the harshest package of sanctions we have ever implemented”.

“Our sanctions will hurt the Russian economy in its heart,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.

Since then, the EU has imposed a further eight rounds of sanctions and is currently weighing a tenth.

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Taken together, the punitive economic measures against Russia by 49 countries – including the 27 EU members and the US – have imposed a set of sanctions and export controls that have been described as the broadest ever imposed on a major economy.

Critics of these sanctions, such as Singaporean ex-diplomat Kishore Mahbubani, have pointed out that these nations only make up 15 per cent of the world’s population.

Of course, that a minority of humanity backs the sanctions does not say anything about whether those sanctions are righteous, and perhaps more importantly, whether they have been effective.

If the expectation was that the sanctions would wreak havoc on the Russian economy and very quickly force Putin to reverse course on military aggression, then they have obviously not served their purpose well.

The Russian economy shrank by 2.2 per cent last year according to the International Monetary Fund, but there is even the possibility of growth this year – with a 0.3 per cent expansion seen as a possibility by the world body.

Ukrainian soldiers carry a drone close to the frontline on February 17. Photo: AP

Sanctions on individuals – some 1,386 people are said to have been hit by EU sanctions – also appear not to have had a damaging effect on Russia’s war effort.

Ahead of Friday’s anniversary, there have been various commentaries detailing the likely reasons behind the weak efficacy of the sanctions.

Chief among them is Russia’s energy lifeline: while it is said to be spending US$300 million a day on the war, it earned about US$800 million a day from energy exports for most of 2022, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air think tank.

Moscow gained from the surge in oil prices that followed its invasion of Ukraine. Its energy revenue for the year stood at US$168 billion, the highest since 2011.

Much has also been written – including in the Post – about how sanctions have deepened Russia’s trade links with China.

Damage caused by a fatal missile strike on a residential district in the Donetsk region of Ukraine in early February 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE

The Washington-based Free Russia Foundation, an advocacy group, said in a report last month that China now receives 20 per cent of Russia’s total energy exports and is the source of 35 per cent of total Russian imports. Other nations, like India and Turkey, have also emerged as important markets for Russia.

The Russian elite has, meanwhile, not seen the kind of fracture that was hoped for with the imposition of sanctions on individuals. As Peter Rutland, a US professor of government wrote in a recent commentary, the oligarchs who were targeted have likely resisted directly criticising Putin as they know doing so means “losing their businesses in Russia, at the very least”.

When governments imposed their respective sanctions on Russia last year, they did so amid a zeitgeist of outrage against Putin’s flagrant breach of international law.

Some politicians and governments may have also imposed the sanctions with an eye on the domestic popularity bump they would have gained by beating their chests about standing on the side of the rule of law.

A year on, we don’t know what will bring peace. But, at the very least, we do know that sanctions are not quite the shock and awe tool they were made out to be last year.