The Russian Individuals Sanctions: A Legal Weapon With a Questionable Political Result

Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 — and dramatically more so after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — Western governments have increasingly relied on a particular type of economic weapon: sanctions against individual Russian citizens.

The logic appears straightforward.

Identify the people considered responsible for Russia’s military and political actions, freeze their assets, prevent them from accessing Western financial systems and, in many cases, prohibit them from entering Western countries.

The objective is equally straightforward: increase the personal cost of the war for Russia’s political leadership, economic elite and individuals supporting the Russian state.

But more than four years after the full-scale invasion, an uncomfortable question remains:

What political result have these individual sanctions actually achieved?

In my personal opinion, the answer is far less impressive than the enormous number of sanctions announcements would suggest.

What is the legal basis?

Sanctions are not, in themselves, criminal convictions.

This distinction is fundamental.

In the European Union, restrictive measures are adopted within the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy framework. Article 29 of the Treaty on European Union allows the Council to adopt decisions defining the EU’s position on restrictive measures, while Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides the mechanism for implementing economic and financial measures against individuals, entities and third countries. (EUR-Lex⁠)

The EU therefore does not need to establish criminal guilt in the same way as a criminal court.

Instead, an individual can be listed because the competent institutions determine that he or she meets specific criteria established by the relevant sanctions regime.