Three years after the United States and its allies imposed the broadest package of economic sanctions in modern history on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, a clear-eyed assessment of what has worked and what has not is possible β and the results are mixed in ways that carry significant implications for American foreign policy.
The sanctions have unquestionably caused significant damage to the Russian economy. Russia has been cut off from Western technology, particularly semiconductors and industrial equipment. Its financial sector was severed from the SWIFT system. Energy exports have been redirected to Asia at a discount, reducing revenues. Inflation ran above 15%, the ruble lost 30% of its value, and hundreds of Western companies exited the market.
But Russia has not collapsed, and the war has continued for three years. Several factors explain the resilience. Energy revenue, while reduced, has remained substantial β Russia earns approximately $400 billion annually from oil and gas despite the price cap regime. China, India, and other non-aligned nations have filled the trade void left by Western departure. And Russia's war economy has proven more adaptable than Western analysts expected.
The sanctions experience is reshaping how American policymakers think about economic statecraft. The lesson is not that sanctions do not work, but that they work more slowly and less completely against large commodity-producing economies than against more financially integrated targets.
