In new deadly Russian attacks on Kiev, the EU representation building was also seriously damaged. Now Brussels is determined to prepare even tougher sanctions against Russia. But what have the restrictions imposed so far achieved?
"The only thing that can achieve anything now is pressure", the European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaia Kalas is convinced. The former Prime Minister of Estonia is one of the driving forces behind the new sanctions that Brussels is imposing on Russia.
The German public media ARD recalls Kalas' assessment that the sanctions are working: in her words, they are undermining Russia's military machine. "After the 17th package banned almost 200 tankers, in one week Russian revenues from the Black and Baltic Sea routes fell by 30 percent," Kallas announced in May. According to her, measures should continue in the energy sector, which fills a large part of the Russian treasury, which is already "almost completely exhausted".
18 packages of sanctions since 2022
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU has imposed 18 packages of sanctions on Russia - each of them must be renewed every six months by a unanimous decision of the member states. European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen says that a 19th package is currently being prepared. Over 2,500 individuals and companies are currently on the sanctions list, ARD recalls. They are subject to seizures, entry bans into the EU and severe restrictions on payments to Russian banks.
The price of Russian crude oil has already fallen to around $48 per barrel, Russian airlines are banned from flying over EU territory, the licenses of dozens of Russian media outlets have been revoked, and a number of products are subject to export bans. According to the EC, their value since the start of the war amounts to €48 billion, while the value of banned imports from Russia amounts to around €91 billion.
The European Commission points out that Russia is trying to get around the sanctions - and this shows that they are working. The Brussels-based Bruegel Institute concludes that Russia's focus on the military economy is having an increasingly dramatic impact on the country's labor market, investment and liquidity - partly because of the sanctions. The fact that additional packages are being worked on shows that the existing ones so far are not giving the desired result, writes ARD.
Russia's ability to wage war has not suffered
Skeptics point out the fact that Russia continues to wage war more than three years after the imposition of the first sanctions. For example, while the EU imposed an embargo on 90 percent of oil imports, Moscow finds other routes, uses old ships and sails under foreign flags, thus continuing to pour money into the Russian military coffers.
For this reason, the EU has already banned access to its ports for over 400 ships from the so-called Russian "shadow fleet". The topic of the 210 billion euros of the Russian Central Bank, which the EU froze, also continues to be discussed. It could not only use the interest rates, as has been the case so far, but also establish access to the 210 billion euros themselves, writes ARD. Critics of this proposal, however, fear that it will be legally problematic, could lead to a loss of trust and instability in the banking sector, and should ultimately be kept as a bargaining chip in further negotiations.
Lessons learned and yet insufficient progress?
There is nothing wrong with this, says Maria Shagina of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in an interview with ARD. However, one should not expect too much from this scenario. "Sanctions suffer from the perception that they will solve all problems and avoid all unintended consequences,” Shagina believes. But this is simply not the case.
Although the West has learned a lot since 2014, when relatively weak sanctions were imposed after the annexation of Crimea, the current measures are hardly enough to serve as a real deterrent. This is particularly evident in the oil price ceiling, explains Shagina - it came too late and allowed Russia to prepare. "So much attention was paid to avoiding inflation and turmoil in world markets that the adequate implementation of this measure failed," the expert criticizes.
Need for a new approach
There was also a lack of a comprehensive approach, which, for example, would have focused attention from the very beginning on the exotic countries under whose flags the "shadow fleet" sails, their captains and insurance companies, ARD writes. Of course, you can put ships on a sanctions list, Shagina notes. But there is another problem - there will always be new people to do these activities, and this becomes a cat-and-mouse game that cannot be won.
Shagina believes that Europe has little experience in imposing strict sanctions and their consistent implementation. This is partly due to historical reasons - for a long time, sanctions were imposed mainly by the US. The EU is far from being perceived as a geopolitical factor in the way that EC President von der Leyen imagines it. Above all, however, it must be clear that sanctions have limits, says Shagina, and that not everyone can have a say in what they are and how they are applied.