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