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After the invasion of Ukraine the European Union, the United States and their partners froze about 300 billion dollars of Russia's central bank reserves, cut most of its banks from the Western financial system, stopped buying most of its energy and banned the sale of technology to it. It is the largest sanctions effort ever mounted against a major economy. Russia's economy did not collapse; it turned east, and to war production. The United States now treats the sanctions as a bargaining chip in its mediation, while Europe keeps tightening them.
The wider confrontation, its history and each side's full account: Russia and Europe.
On 16 September the US Congress passed a Russia sanctions bill. On 18 September Trump signed it, with new tariff powers. The same day Russia placed Nestle and Auchan under temporary state control. On 21 September the EU lifted sanctions on two Russian oligarchs. On 23 September the EU extended its Russia sanctions but dropped the two. On 29 September Trump backed a plan to ease some Russia sanctions.
Whether they work. They were meant to stop the war or make it unaffordable. Neither has happened in four years, and both sides claim vindication: Russia because it is still fighting, Europe because Russia's economy is slowing, its reserves are gone and its oil sells at a discount.
The frozen reserves. Europe holds most of them. Using them for Ukraine would make Russia pay; it would also tell every other country that reserves held in euros are safe only while their owner stays in favour.
Who decides. Europe wants them kept until Russia leaves Ukraine. Washington has twice eased them on its own for its own reasons. Much of the rest of the world never joined.
Sanctions have cost Russia hundreds of billions, starved its arms industry of components and forced it to sell oil cheaply to two customers. Without them the war chest would be far larger. They are also the only lever Europe holds over the peace, and lifting them before Russia withdraws would pay it for the invasion.
The sanctions are illegal, and they failed. Russia grew while Germany shrank; it found new buyers, new suppliers and new payment systems, and the countries that imposed them lost their cheapest energy and a large market. Freezing a central bank's reserves is theft and has taught the world to get out of the dollar and the euro. Any settlement must remove them.
The European Union's leaves out that it still buys Russian gas, fertiliser and nuclear fuel; that much of what it banned reaches Russia through third countries; and what the measures cost its own industry.
Moscow's leaves out interest rates near twenty percent, the spent reserve fund, an economy that grows only where it makes weapons, and its dependence on China as buyer and supplier on China's terms.
Washington's leaves out that sanctions lifted and reimposed at will lose their force, and that its own firms are positioned for the Russian market when they go.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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Sanctions are a tool, to be tightened or relaxed as the negotiation requires. America eased them on Russian oil when the Iran war drove prices up, and threatens the buyers of that oil when Moscow stalls.
