Russia Faces Thousands of Sanctions

In times of war, sanctions are used as economic weapons to put pressure on a country. Immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia was hit with over 1,000 sanctions. Since that date, new restrictions have been added almost every month, with a peak of 5,590 sanctions in October 2022.

The following chart is based on CORRECTIV's analysis of the OpenSanctions database. According to this source, there are currently 28,227 active sanctions against Russia (as of January 11, 2024).

CORRECTIV found that when it comes to sanctioned individuals, politicians (715) and to a lesser extent oligarchs (109) and military personnel (108) are the primary subjects of such economic blockades (as of June 27, 2022), which include the freezing of European accounts. Sanctioned companies include Russian banks, defense companies and also media groups such as Russia Today (RT).

Most of these economic measures have so far been imposed by Switzerland (1,971), followed by the European Union (1,435) and Australia (1,221). Just some examples of these include EU bans on coal and steel imports and Russian flagged ships forbidden from entering EU ports. In addition to the sanctions at a state level, many companies have also suspended business in Russia or have withdrawn completely from the country.

Find out more on the world’s most sanctioned countries here. In this linked article, the source does not include as wide a scope of criteria for sanctions as CORRECTIV, hence a lower figure for Russia.