International sanctions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine

• 1. Introduction

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  International sanctions targeting Russia began arriving on the same day as the invasion of Ukraine: the 24th of February 2022. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced "massive" EU measures before that day was out. Her foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, said Russia would face "unprecedented isolation" through what he called the "harshest package of sanctions we have ever implemented." He added that those hours were "among the darkest hours of Europe since the Second World War."

  The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, and many others moved in parallel within days. They targeted individuals, banks, businesses, monetary exchanges, exports, and imports. Major multinational companies including Apple, IKEA, ExxonMobil, and General Motors also chose to withdraw from Russia on their own initiative, going beyond what their home governments required.

  Daleep Singh, then the U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor, called the combined effort "the most severe economic sanctions ever levied on Russia." He had previously built U.S. sanctions against Russia in 2014 in response to the annexation of Crimea. He said the goal was to "impose overwhelming costs" on Russia without simply destroying its economy.

  On the 27th of February, Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's "deterrence forces" to a "special regime of combat duty." He cited what he called "aggressive statements" by Western governments. U.S. officials called the order "escalatory." Russia in turn moved to shore up relationships with trading partners who had no intention of joining the boycott, among them China, India, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

• 2. Severing the Financial Arteries

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  Sergei Aleksashenko, a former Russian deputy finance minister, called it "a kind of financial nuclear bomb that is falling on Russia." He was describing the move against Russia's central bank. That bank held $630 billion in foreign-exchange reserves before the invasion. Western nations froze those assets to prevent Russia from using them to offset the blow.

  By the 28th of February, Russia had been blocked from accessing about $300 billion in reserves held abroad. By the 1st of March, the total amount of Russian assets frozen by the sanctions had reached $1 trillion. Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, predicted that the West would freeze "almost 1,000 billion dollars" of Russian funds. He forecast a collapse of the Russian economy as a result. The actual figure fell well short of that: by July 2023, the G7 countries and the EU had frozen approximately $335 billion, or €300 billion.

  On the 28th of February, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control prohibited American persons from transacting with the Russian Central Bank. It also targeted the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Russian Venture Company, and Kirill Dmitriev, a personal ally of Vladimir Putin. Days of negotiation among European nations had produced an agreement to expel many Russian banks from SWIFT, the main network for international payments. A limited carve-out preserved access for gas payments, a concession to European energy needs.

  Singapore became the first country in Southeast Asia to impose financial sanctions on Russia. Its move was described as "almost unprecedented" by regional observers. South Korea joined the SWIFT ban and added export controls on strategic materials. Those controls extended to goods covered by four international agreements: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Australia Group, and the Missile Technology Control Regime. Japan's central bank limited its transactions with Russia's. Monaco adopted economic measures identical to those of most European states.

  Switzerland, long described by its own embassy in Moscow as "the most important destination worldwide for rich Russians to manage their wealth," froze CHF 6.7 billion in Russian assets by July 2022. Swiss authorities said that total exceeded what any other single country had frozen at that point. The U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland, Scott Miller, said in 2023 that Switzerland could block an additional CHF 50-100 billion in Russian assets and had not done so.

  In October 2024, the G7 finalized a plan to loan $50 billion to Ukraine, backed by more than $3 billion in annual interest earned on the frozen Russian assets. The United States committed to contribute $20 billion of that total.

• 3. Fossil Fuels and Price Caps

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  In April 2022, Russia was supplying 45 percent of the European Union's gas imports and earning $900 million a day from that trade alone. In the first two months after the invasion, Russia collected $66.5 billion from all fossil fuel exports. The EU accounted for 71 percent of that revenue.

  Canada moved first among major importers, banning Russian crude oil on the 28th of February. On the 8th of March, U.S. President Joe Biden ordered a ban on American imports of Russian oil, gas, and coal. That same day, Shell announced its withdrawal from the Russian hydrocarbons industry.

  When the European Commission proposed a ban on Russian oil imports, Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who had cultivated a close relationship with Putin, stood in opposition. Hungary imported 60 percent of its oil from Russia through pipelines. The proposal was scaled back to a ban on oil arriving by sea. Pipeline imports of approximately 800,000 barrels a day remained exempt. The embargo on crude oil by sea began in December 2022. The ban on refined oil products followed in February 2023.

  Chancellor Olaf Scholz suspended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, built to carry Russian gas under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany. Germany also created a €100 billion fund for additional defence spending. Its industrial sector began importing more coal and gas from non-Russian sources while new power generation capacity was built.

  On the 2nd of September, the G7 group of nations agreed to cap the price of Russian oil, aiming to reduce war revenues without pushing global energy prices higher. The European Union adopted its own price cap on the 6th of October, with the maximum set on the 5th of December 2022. By August 2023, Russian oil had exceeded the cap, reaching $73.57 per barrel. A U.S. Treasury report from May 2023 concluded that the sanctions had succeeded in stabilising oil supply and reducing Russian tax revenue.

  Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said in 2022 that Turkey could not join the sanctions because it imported almost half its gas from Russia. Energy journalist Aura Sabaduș, who covers the Black Sea region, described how Turkey might mix gas from Russia with supplies from Iran, Azerbaijan, and other sources and relabel the combined product as Turkish, so that European buyers would not know the origin. In practice, the TurkStream pipeline was running well below its annual capacity of 31.5 billion cubic meters.

  The European Commission and the International Energy Agency set a joint target to reduce Russian gas imports by two thirds within a year and eliminate them entirely by 2030. Von der Leyen declared in April that "the era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe will come to an end." The EU published a formal plan to end reliance on Russian oil, natural gas, and coal by 2027.

  In April 2024, the United States and the United Kingdom banned imports of aluminum, copper, and nickel from Russia. In May 2024, Biden signed legislation blocking low-enriched uranium imports from Russia. In June 2025, a majority of U.S. senators backed the Sanctioning Russia Act, which would impose 500 percent tariffs on any country purchasing Russian oil, gas, uranium, or other exports. China and India, the main buyers of Russian energy, were its primary targets.

• 4. Skies Closed, Planes Held

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  EU sanctions announced on the 25th of February 2022 banned the sale of aircraft and spare parts to Russia. Foreign lessors were required to terminate their leases with Russian airlines by the end of March. At that point, about 515 commercial aircraft worth approximately $10 billion were leased to Russian carriers by foreign companies.

  On the 10th of March, Russia passed legislation making the return of leased aircraft nearly impossible without government committee approval and payment in roubles. Four days later, it implemented a law allowing aircraft to be re-registered under the Russian registry, effectively confiscating them from their overseas owners. By the 31st of March, Russian deputy prime minister Yury Borisov declared that more than 400 aircraft had been re-registered. They would remain in Russia, he said.

  Irish lessor AerCap had 135 aircraft leased to Russian airlines and repossessed 22 of them by the 30th of March. It filed insurance claims totalling $3.5 billion for the planes still held inside Russia. AerCap stated that those remaining aircraft were "now being flown illegally by its former airline customers." Singapore-based BOC Aviation had 18 aircraft worth $935 million on lease to Russian companies. It recovered one Boeing 747-8F from Hong Kong, but two other freighters were flown back to Russia against the lessor's explicit instructions.

  On the 14th of March, EASA revoked the type certificates of the Sukhoi Superjet 100, the Tupolev Tu-204, and four other Russian aircraft types. The Bermuda registry, where many Russian airline aircraft had been registered, suspended airworthiness approvals the same day. By June 2022, Patrick Ky, the executive director of EASA, warned publicly that risks to Western-made aircraft operating in Russia without proper maintenance would increase over time. He cited reports that Russia would be forced to cannibalise aircraft. Reuters, citing four industry sources, reported in August 2022 that Russia had already stripped components from Airbus A320s, A350s, a Boeing 737, and a Sukhoi Superjet. Around 15 percent of Aeroflot's fleet appeared to be grounded by that point.

  By April 2023, Aeroflot was sending aircraft to Iran for maintenance, drawing on Iran's own experience operating under sanctions. In May 2023, flight attendants were reportedly instructed not to log maintenance issues that would normally require grounding. By August 2023, the airline was operating some aircraft with disabled brakes and directing pilots to rely solely on reverse thrusters.

  The United Kingdom expelled Russian airlines from its airspace on the 25th of February. The European Union and Canada closed theirs on the 27th. The United States issued a similar ban on the 1st of March. Russia responded with a reciprocal ban, forcing many airlines to reroute or cancel flights to Asian destinations. On the 9th of March, Finnair began routing its Asia flights over the North Pole. It was the first time a polar commercial route had been used in nearly 30 years. Analyses showed that affected routes had grown by between 1,200 and 4,000 kilometres.

  Researchers from Finland reported in June 2025 that Russia had managed to import approximately 4,000 shipments of Boeing and Airbus spare parts while under sanctions. The parts, valued at around €1 billion, moved through subsidiaries in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China, and Gabon.

• 5. Seizing the Oligarchs

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  In his State of the Union address on the 1st of March 2022, President Biden addressed Russian oligarchs directly. "We're joining with European allies to find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets," he said. "We're coming for your ill-begotten gains." The following day, U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced the formation of Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency effort dedicated to pursuing those assets.

  Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire placed under sanctions, held two properties the U.S. government estimated at $180 million combined: an Airbus A319-115 private jet and the motoryacht Tango. On the 4th of April, the Spanish Civil Guard and U.S. federal agents seized the Tango in Mallorca. Estimates of its value ranged from $90 million to $120 million, depending on the source.

  John "Jack" Hanick was arrested in London on the 3rd of February 2022 for violating U.S. sanctions against Konstantin Malofeev, the owner of Tsargrad TV. Malofeev had been sanctioned for providing material and financial support to Donbas separatists. A federal court in the Southern District of New York had kept Hanick under sealed indictment since November 2021. That indictment was unsealed on the 3rd of March 2022. He became the first person criminally indicted for violating U.S. sanctions during the war in Ukraine and awaited extradition from the United Kingdom.

  On the 26th of February, the French Navy intercepted the Russian cargo ship Baltic Leader in the English Channel and escorted it to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer. On the 2nd of March, French customs seized the yacht Amore Vero at a shipyard in La Ciotat. Authorities believed it belonged to the sanctioned oligarch Igor Sechin. That same day in Germany, authorities immobilized the Dilbar, owned by Alisher Usmanov. The Dilbar was reported to have cost $800 million and to employ 84 full-time crew members. It also reportedly contained the largest indoor swimming pool ever installed on a superyacht, at 180 cubic metres.

  Italian police impounded the Lady M on the 4th of March, believed to be owned by Alexei Mordashov. That same day in the port of Sanremo, they seized the Lena, the yacht of Gennady Timchenko, which also appeared on a U.S. sanctions list. On the 12th of March, the sailing yacht A, known to be owned by Andrey Melnichenko, was seized in Trieste. A spokesperson for Melnichenko vowed to contest the action. Spain detained three vessels: the Valerie in the Port of Barcelona, the Lady Anastasia in Port Adriano in Calvià on Mallorca, and the Crescent in the Port of Tarragona. In the United Kingdom, transport secretary Grant Shapps announced the seizure of the PHI from Canary Wharf on the 29th of March. The yacht had been about to leave. In the Netherlands, Foreign Affairs Minister Wopke Hoekstra reported on the 6th of April that twelve yachts under construction across five Dutch shipyards had been immobilized to verify their ownership.

  By early April, a tally published by Insider estimated the total value of yachts impounded across Europe at over $2 billion. In September 2023, Dutch shipyard Damen Group filed a lawsuit against the Netherlands government seeking compensation for business losses caused by those measures. The company said the severance of ties with its Russian engineering branch had been a significant financial setback.

• 6. The Evasion Networks

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  Property purchases in Dubai by Russians surged by 67 percent in the first three months of 2022. Around 200,000 Russians left their country in the first ten days of the war. Roman Abramovich's $350 million Boeing 787 Dreamliner was grounded in Dubai, the subject of a U.S. federal court seizure order. Andrey Melnichenko's $300 million Motor Yacht A was docked in Ras al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates.

  The UAE declared itself neutral and cited the position of the United Nations, which had imposed no sanctions of its own. Danish MEP Kira Marie Peter-Hansen and campaigner Bill Browder both called for the UAE to be blacklisted for allowing the flow of money from sanctioned Russians. In May 2022, members of the European Parliament formally proposed that the UAE be added to a blacklist for permitting sanctioned oligarchs to invest in Dubai.

  Luxury brands Cartier and Tiffany announced they would not purchase Russian diamonds. Diamond companies in Russia, however, were routing their goods through intermediaries in Dubai, mixing rough diamonds into parcels to conceal their origin. Some diamond experts described Dubai as the "laundromat" of the diamond industry.

  On the 27th of June, the U.S. sanctioned four firms linked to Russia's Wagner Group for illicit gold trading, including Dubai-based Industrial Resources General Trading. In November, the United Kingdom targeted 29 individuals and entities in Russia's gold, oil, and strategic sectors. Among them were a Dubai-based gold trader called Paloma Precious DMCC and Zimbabwean businessman Howard Jon Baker. The UAE-based network was accused of funneling $300 million in gold profits to Russia. Baker had ties to the beneficial owner of one of the Emirates' largest gold refiners, which had already lost its recognition for involvement in money laundering. The UAE became the largest hub for Russian gold after the war began.

  Geneva was the hub for about 80 percent of Russia's commodity trading before the invasion. Vitol, Cargill, Glencore, and Trafigura together made $50 billion in profits in 2022. That figure was roughly five times more than they had earned over the previous decade, partly because traders were buying cheap Russian oil and reselling it at a higher price.

  On the 24th of July 2023, U.S. Treasury officials traveled to Geneva for a meeting with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. The talks centered on reducing Swiss commodity traders' exposure to Russian energy imports. Neither side accused the traders of directly evading sanctions. Both acknowledged the same concern: adherence to the rules relied on self-verification, with no independent supervision.

  On the 27th of September 2023, shares of UBS fell by as much as 8 percent and the Swiss Stock Exchange temporarily halted trading. The U.S. Department of Justice had opened an investigation into Credit Suisse's dealings with Russia before its acquisition by UBS in June 2023. UBS had already built a buffer of CHF 9 billion, or about US$10.3 billion, to cover potential Credit Suisse losses.

  On the 16th of December, the European Union introduced its ninth package of sanctions against Russia. A spokesperson for the Belgian government captured the central difficulty plainly: "It is becoming increasingly difficult to impose sanctions that hit Russia hard enough, without excessive collateral damage to the EU."