Sanctions on Russia: What’s working? What’s not?

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. and its allies imposed an unprecedented set of sanctions on the Russian economy including restrictions on Russian imports of high-tech goods, limits on Russia’s revenues through a price cap on its oil exports, and financial sanctions against Russian banks and government entities. Although there are many clear sanction successes, Russia’s economy to date has proved more resilient than many expected, and sanctions have not deterred Putin’s aggressive military campaign. On May 28, the Economic Studies and Foreign Policy programs at Brookings considered the effectiveness of the sanctions and ways to tighten them with the release of a series of working papers and a conversation. Daleep Singh, deputy White House national security advisor for international economics, delivered keynote comments. His remarks were followed by a panel with economist Yuriy Gorodnichenko of the University of California-Berkeley, who wrote one of the essays, Agathe Demarais of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and Brookings Senior Fellow Fiona Hill. The panel was moderated by Reuters Diplomatic Correspondent Arshad Mohammed. Viewers joined the conversation and ask questions of the speakers by emailing [email protected] or on X/Twitter at @BrookingsEcon and/or @BrookingsFP using the hashtag #Sanctions.

Download the working paper drafts of policy briefs: 

• “Loosening may help,” Sergey Aleksashenko
• “Time for a complete ban on economic ties with Russia,” Torbjörn Becker and Yuriy Gorodnichenko
• “A sanctions guidebook for policymakers,” Emily Blanchard
• “Export controls and US-China technology competition in an interdependent,” Lee Branstetter
• “Has the US reached ‘peak sanctions’?” Peter Harrell
• “Strengthening enforcement of the Russian oil price cap,” Simon Johnson and Catherine Wolfram
• “Making the Baltic a ‘shadow-free’ zone,” Craig Kennedy
• “From ad-hoc sanctions to strategic economic containment,” Janis Kluge
• “A proposal for Russian asset seizure,” Joseph E. Stiglitz and Andrew Kosenko

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