Russia has been crumbling more and more under sanctions since it decided to undertake the aggression against Ukraine on February 24, just a month ago. Measures which do not seem to prevent it, for the moment, from continuing its offensive on the country and bombing the major Ukrainian cities, not avoiding civilian targets.
If sanctions have weighed on Moscow since 2014 and the annexation of Crimea, new batches of measures were decided at the beginning of the conflict, when Vladimir Putin caused an outcry recognizing the two separatist regions of Donbass as “independent”.
Then, on February 24, the countries of the European Union agreed to target different sectors of activity through several sets of measures. Small summary, not exhaustive, of the sanctions which weigh on Russia while new measures must be announced this Thursday March 24, after a summit in Brussels in the presence of Joe Biden. According to Jake Sullivan, national security adviser of the United States, the G7 countries will launch an “initiative” to ensure that Russia cannot circumvent the sanctions which have already been imposed on it.
The day after the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine, the European Union took unprecedented measures against Vladimir Putin himself and his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, by freezing their assets. This response to Ukraine’s aggression was also decided on the side of the United States.
Japan has also joined Western countries in imposing a series of economic sanctions on Russia but also on Belarus, including freezing the assets of Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. London has also frozen British assets of the Russian president and his foreign minister.
- The oligarchs and others close to power
877 people and 62 entities are subject to sanctions because “their actions have compromised the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”, justifies the European Council. These include Russian oligarchs, but the list has been extended to people linked to Russia’s industrial and defense base. All members of the Duma, the lower house of parliament, are also on this list.
The punitive measures include the freezing of assets and a ban on making funds available to listed individuals and entities. In addition, a travel ban applicable to listed persons prevents them from entering or transiting through EU territory.
For its part, the United States has already extended on several occasions the list of Russian personalities whose assets it freezes, and to which it prohibits any financial or economic activity involving American individuals or companies, even in certain cases, entry into American territory. But so far missing from this American list is the name of one of the most famous Russian oligarchs, the billionaire Roman Abramovich, owner of the Chelsea football club, already targeted on the other hand by sanctions from the European Union and the Kingdom. -United.
On Wednesday March 23, two new yachts belonging to the Russian oligarch Alexei Kuzmitchev, among the most influential in Russia, were “frozen” on the Côte d’Azur, as part of the sanctions imposed by the European Union. France had already immobilized a mega-yacht, theLove Vero, owned by a company linked to the boss of the Russian oil giant Rosneft, Igor Setchin, on March 3. These two new pleasure boat freezes took place on March 16 and 21, in Antibes and Cannes.
Several European countries, such as Spain, Italy and France, but also Great Britain have seized yachts belonging to wealthy Russians under European sanctions. On Tuesday, oligarch Dimitri Pumpianski’s yacht was seized in the British enclave of Gibraltar. The immobilization of goods means that their owners can no longer “use them, resell them or monetize them”, said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.
After establishing a ban on transactions with the Russian Central Bank in coordination with the United States, the European Union took the decision to exclude seven Russian banks from the Swift system. Some 300 Russian banks and institutions use it. This sanction aims to ensure the disconnection of these banks from the international financial system and undermine their ability to operate on a global scale.
The EU has also decided to drastically limit Russia’s access to European capital markets, hampering and increasing the cost of financing its debt. EU banks are prohibited from accepting deposits from Russian citizens of more than 100,000 euros.
The EU has also prohibited investment in future projects co-financed by the Russian Direct Investment Fund, to participate in them or otherwise contribute to them and also to sell, supply, transfer or export banknotes denominated in euros to Russia or to any natural or legal person or entity in Russia.
A ban on overflight of EU airspace and access to EU airports by Russian carriers was decided on February 28 by the Twenty-Seven. Members of the European Union have also set a ban on all transactions with certain Russian public companies, the provision of credit rating services to any Russian person or entity. They decreed a ban on new investments in the Russian energy sector, and introduced a global restriction on the export of equipment, technologies and services intended for the energy sector.
It is also prohibited to export to Russia aircraft, parts and equipment for the aeronautical and space industry, as well as refining technologies for the oil industry. These restrictions also affect dual-use goods (civilian and military).
The country’s access to crucial technologies has also been reduced, depriving Russia of electronic components and software, in such a way as to seriously penalize its economy. In the latest package of sanctions adopted by the EU on March 15, new trade restrictions on iron and steel, as well as luxury goods, were introduced.
On March 11, the United States decided to revoke Russia’s “most favored nation” trade status, in coordination with the G7 allies. The revocation of the status of “most favored nation”, says PNTR (for Permanent normal trade relations), opens the door to punitive customs duties on imported Russian products. A member of the G7, Canada made a similar decision regarding Belarus.
Joe Biden ordered an embargo on Russian oil imports to the United States on March 8. If the decision was taken “in close coordination” with the Allies, the American president stands out from his European counterparts, who have so far refused to draw such a sanction. It must be said that Europe as a whole is much more dependent on Russian supplies, which represent 40% of its natural gas needs and around 25% for oil, according to Eurostat. On the other hand, the United States does not import Russian gas, and only 8% of American imports of crude oil and petroleum products came from Russia in 2021.
If the European Union (EU) will decide “unitedly” in the event of an American embargo, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has expressed his disagreement with such a sanction, considering that the supply of Europe “does not [pouvait] cannot be assured otherwise for the moment”.
The United Kingdom, for its part, has already decided to stop imports of Russian crude oil and petroleum products. A decision which will however only apply at the end of 2022.
All the countries of the European Union decided on March 2 to ban the two Russian television channels Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, the Kremlin’s state propaganda organs, from their media space. The activity of the two media is therefore suspended until the Russian aggression ceases in Ukraine.
Other countries have also chosen to ban the broadcast of Sputnik and RT, such as Canada. Britain’s media regulator meanwhile withdrew RT’s broadcast license in the UK, saying it was no longer “suitable or appropriate” to broadcast it in the country following the invasion of Ukraine.