The Russian Individuals Sanctions: A Legal Weapon With a Questionable Political Result

Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 — and dramatically more so after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — Western governments have increasingly relied on a particular type of economic weapon: sanctions against individual Russian citizens.

The logic appears straightforward.

Identify the people considered responsible for Russia’s military and political actions, freeze their assets, prevent them from accessing Western financial systems and, in many cases, prohibit them from entering Western countries.

The objective is equally straightforward: increase the personal cost of the war for Russia’s political leadership, economic elite and individuals supporting the Russian state.

But more than four years after the full-scale invasion, an uncomfortable question remains:

What political result have these individual sanctions actually achieved?

In my personal opinion, the answer is far less impressive than the enormous number of sanctions announcements would suggest.

What is the legal basis?

Sanctions are not, in themselves, criminal convictions.

This distinction is fundamental.

In the European Union, restrictive measures are adopted within the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy framework. Article 29 of the Treaty on European Union allows the Council to adopt decisions defining the EU’s position on restrictive measures, while Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides the mechanism for implementing economic and financial measures against individuals, entities and third countries. (EUR-Lex⁠)

The EU therefore does not need to establish criminal guilt in the same way as a criminal court.

Instead, an individual can be listed because the competent institutions determine that he or she meets specific criteria established by the relevant sanctions regime.

This creates a very different legal mechanism from criminal prosecution.

A person can therefore be sanctioned without being convicted of a crime.

What happens to a sanctioned individual?

The consequences can be extremely serious.

Within the EU, the principal measures normally include:

• freezing funds and economic resources;

• prohibiting EU citizens and companies from making funds or economic resources available to the sanctioned person;

• preventing the individual from entering or transiting through EU territory.

The freeze can affect bank accounts, securities, corporate interests and other economic resources. It can also affect property when the property falls within the relevant legal definition and ownership or control requirements. (Consilium⁠)

The United Kingdom operates its own sanctions regime following Brexit. Its Russia regime similarly imposes targeted asset freezes and prohibits making funds or economic resources available to designated persons. (GOV.UK⁠)

The United States operates principally through the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC. A person placed on the SDN List can face blocking of property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction, together with severe restrictions on transactions involving U.S. persons.

The systems are therefore similar in objective but not identical in law.

Who has been targeted?

The lists are not limited to billionaires.

They include — depending on the jurisdiction and the particular sanctions regime — senior political figures, government officials, military commanders, businessmen, executives of strategic companies, propagandists, regional officials, members of political institutions and people accused of supporting Russia’s military-industrial complex or sanctions-evasion networks.

Among the best-known Russian individuals targeted by Western sanctions have been figures such as Vladimir Putin, Sergei Lavrov, Sergei Shoigu, Igor Sechin, Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, Gennady Timchenko, Alisher Usmanov, Viktor Vekselberg and other members of Russia’s political and economic elite.

But the lists continue to expand.

In August 2026, for example, the EU added five additional individuals connected to Russia’s military-industrial complex, including Aleksandr Dyukarev, general director of Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant. (Consilium⁠)

The United States continues to update its SDN list as well, with Russia-related designations still being made in 2026. (OFAC⁠)

This is therefore not a policy that has been abandoned.

Quite the opposite.

It has become institutionalised.

But what has it achieved?

Here the discussion becomes much more complicated.

There is no doubt that sanctions can have real effects on individuals.

A sanctioned businessman may lose access to European or American banks. His securities may become frozen. A property transaction can become impossible. Corporate structures may become significantly more difficult to operate. International travel can become restricted.

Those are real consequences.

But the relevant question is different:

Have individual sanctions produced the political objective for which they were introduced?

Russia has not withdrawn from Ukraine because Russian oligarchs have been sanctioned.

The Kremlin has not fundamentally changed its strategic position because wealthy Russians have lost access to European banking.

The war has not ended because thousands of names have been added to sanctions lists.

And the Russian political system has not experienced the internal collapse that some early sanctions expectations appeared to anticipate.

The EU itself continues to describe the sanctions as part of a broader effort to pressure Russia, while repeatedly extending and expanding them. In June 2026, for example, the Council extended its economic sanctions for another year, through July 2027. (Consilium⁠)

This creates a paradox.

The sanctions are clearly doing something to the sanctioned individuals, but there is much less evidence that they are achieving the central political objective of changing Russian state behaviour.

That distinction should be at the centre of the debate.

The oligarch problem

One of the original political theories behind targeting Russian billionaires was that economic pressure on the elite could eventually translate into political pressure on the Kremlin.

But this assumption underestimated the structure of the Russian political system.

An oligarch who loses access to London property, European bank accounts or Western financial markets does not automatically acquire the political capacity to challenge the Kremlin.

In fact, sanctions can potentially strengthen the dependence of wealthy individuals on the Russian state.

If Western assets become inaccessible while Russia remains the only functioning environment for their domestic wealth, the relationship between economic elites and the state can become more, rather than less, dependent.

That does not mean sanctions are useless.

It means that economic pain and political leverage are not the same thing.

Can sanctions be circumvented?

This is another critical issue.

A sophisticated international financial system provides many jurisdictions, corporate structures and intermediaries.

That does not mean that sanctions can simply be ignored.

It does mean that enforcement becomes considerably more complicated when wealth is internationalised.

Western governments themselves recognise this problem.

The United States, European Union and United Kingdom have increasingly targeted networks and intermediaries accused of helping Russia circumvent restrictions. The UK, for example, has introduced additional measures specifically aimed at sanctions-evasion networks and payment routes. (GOV.UK⁠)

At a generic level, circumvention can involve the use of third-country jurisdictions, different corporate ownership structures, intermediaries, nominee arrangements or financial institutions outside the sanctioning jurisdiction.

The same conceptual problem applies to real estate.

A property may not be held directly in the sanctioned individual’s personal name. Ownership can involve companies or other structures, creating a legal question about beneficial ownership and control.

Banking presents a similar problem.

The fact that a person is not using a bank located in the sanctioning jurisdiction does not automatically make a transaction lawful. Secondary-sanctions exposure, beneficial ownership, correspondent banking relationships and applicable local law can all matter.

For this reason, sanctions evasion is not simply a technical banking exercise.

It can itself create additional legal exposure.

The real measure of success

There are therefore two completely different ways of measuring sanctions.

The first is:

Did the sanctioned individual suffer?

In many cases, unquestionably yes.

The second is:

Did the sanctions change Russia’s political or military behaviour?

Here the answer is much less convincing.

And this is where the Western sanctions strategy deserves a serious debate.

A sanctions regime can be legally valid, administratively sophisticated and financially painful while still failing to achieve its ultimate geopolitical objective.

That is not a contradiction.

It is precisely the distinction policymakers should make.

A policy that may have become an end in itself

The danger is that sanctions become self-perpetuating.

Every new Russian action produces another package.

Every package produces new names.

Every new name produces another round of asset freezes.

And the existence of thousands of sanctioned individuals and entities can create the appearance of increasingly strong action.

But numbers are not outcomes.

The real test should be whether the policy contributes measurably to ending the war, reducing Russia’s capacity to wage it, changing elite incentives or producing a negotiated political settlement.

If those outcomes remain distant, policymakers should ask whether simply adding more names is still the most effective strategy.

Conclusion: pressure is not the same as victory

The sanctions against individual Russians are legally powerful instruments.

They can immobilise assets, restrict financial access, prevent international travel and fundamentally alter the economic lives of the people targeted.

But after years of increasingly extensive sanctions, the central political question remains unresolved.

The West has demonstrated that it can sanction Russian individuals. It has not demonstrated that sanctioning those individuals is sufficient to change the strategic behaviour of the Russian state.

In my personal view, this is the uncomfortable truth that deserves more attention.

The sanctions may have produced substantial personal consequences.

But if the objective was to force a fundamental change in Russia’s conduct of the war, the results so far look far less impressive.

A sanctions list is not a peace agreement.

And adding another name to a list is not, by itself, evidence of geopolitical success.

This article expresses the author’s personal opinions and should not be interpreted as legal, financial or investment advice.

Roberto Balbino — CEO, Fintech SBB