Russia has vaulted past Iran and North Korea to become the world’s most-sanctioned nation in the span of just 10 days following President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a surge of action led by the U.S. and European allies starting Feb. 22, Russia became the target of 2,778 new sanctions designations, bringing them to more than 5,530, according to Castellum.ai, a global sanctions-tracking database. That surpassed Iran, which has confronted 3,616 sanctions against it over the course of a decade, most for its nuclear program and support of terrorism.
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The pressure on Russia has increased nearly every day. Over the weekend, American Express Co. and Netflix Inc. joined the growing list of companies withdrawing from or suspending operations in Russia. Some are doing so because of sanctions liabilities, but others are “self-sanctioning” -- essentially deciding to get out even though they aren’t legally required to do so.
“This is financial nuclear war and the largest sanctions event in history,” said Peter Piatetsky, a former Treasury Department official in the Obama and Trump administrations who co-founded Castellum.ai. “Russia went from being part of the global economy to the single largest target of global sanctions and a financial pariah in less than two weeks.”
The sanctions against Russia underscore the extraordinary unity between the U.S. and its allies in the face of Putin’s invasion and their determination to leverage their economic power to try to dissuade him from pressing his advance. It also reflects the reluctance of those nations to put troops in harm’s way in Ukraine, a non-NATO ally.
Putin said over the weekend that the blitz of sanctions is “akin to a declaration of war.”
The vast majority of the sanctions against Russia since Feb. 22 are against individuals -- 2,427, Castellum.ai says -- compared with 343 against entities, which are usually companies or government agencies.
The nation leading penalties against Russia is Switzerland, with 568 sanctions actions, compared with 518 for the European Union and 512 for France. The U.S. has imposed 243 sanctions actions.
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