After Putin recognized Donetsk’s and Lugansk’s independences and his military actions against Ukraine, the members of the G7, with the United States (US) and European United (EU) at the helm, imposed certain economic and political sanctions to stop him.
One of the first decisions was regarding certain people and entities connected to the Moscow Kremlin. On February 23rd, the European Union added to an existing list, created back in 2014 after the Russian annexing of Crimea and that had already 190 people registered, the 351 members of the Russian Parliament that had voted in favor of the Donbas region’s independence and another 27 people related to this incident. They were all prohibited from entering the EU and their assets in said countries were frozen. Moreover, other countries, such as the US and the UK, adhere to this last measure and froze Putin’s, his foreign ministers’ and Russian entrepreneurs’, among others, assets. One of the better-known cases was that of Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea FC, an English football club.
Furthermore, one of the harshest measures imposed by the EU, the US, Canada, the United Kingdom (UK), Australia and Japan was denying the Central Bank of Russian Federation access to their currency abroad. It is important to mention that Switzerland adhered to this and other proposals, ending their historical neutrality which, they had kept during the two World Wars.
On the other hand, they prohibited the export of materials used for oil refining. Joe Biden has also stopped the import of oil, liquified petroleum gas and coal. The UK has followed with this decision but will do it gradually. The European Union has an interdependence with Russia regarding these matters therefore they will keep buying gas and oil from her.
They have also removed seven Russian banks from the Swift System, which allows for easier transactions and which groups together banks from all over the world. Consequently, this will disable the access of this banks to foreign financial systems. Despite this, the Sterbank, Russia’s biggest bank, and the Gazprombank were exempt from this sanction as they are ones that the EU pays their gas and oil purchases to. The United States and Japan prohibited the Sterbank from doing transactions in dollars. Moreover, Visa, MasterCard and American Express suspended their operations in Russia and the World Bank halted all its programs in Russia and Belarus.
Regarding the commercial sector, the European activities in the Donbas were restricted and so was the import of products from the steel industry. Also, the import of products which can used by the military and civilians alike was barred.
In addition, there were sanctions regarding transport. Russian planes were prevented from accessing the airspace of the EU, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland. Therefore, Aeroflot, Russia’s largest airline, was forced to suspend their international flights, except to Minsk. However, on April 5, the Kremlin decided to cancel the COVID-19 restrictions on flights to 52 countries that had not adhered to the sanctions mentioned above. Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela were some of these countries, and so were Bosnia and Serbia, the only European countries in this group.
Lastly, Russia was also penalized in other matters beyond the economic sector. She was expelled from the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Russia Today and Sputnik, state-owned media outlets, were banned by the European Union, while YouTube and Facebook blocked their adds in Europe. Regarding sport activities, the Russian Federation was banned by the FIFA from the World Cup. The UEFA changed the Champions League’s location, which was set to play in Saint Petersburg, and other associations also excluded Russians athletes from their competitions.