Sanctions, Communication, and Ambigu

Abstract

I am writing this on the anniversary of Russia’s 24 February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which the threat of sanctions had failed to deter. Following the invasion, the widest ever multilateral grouping of nations (if we leave to one side the obligation that exists for all UN Member States to implement UN Security Council sanctions), acting jointly and severally, have imposed on Russia economic and non-economic sanctions of exceptional scope and severity, including embargoes and 86Defence Strategic Communications | Volume 12 | Spring 2023DOI 10.30966/2018.RIGA.12.5energy boycotts, systemic financial sanctions, and sanctions targeted against numerous entities and individuals. (Even so, as has frequently been pointed out, although the countries imposing sanctions account for well over 50 per cent of global GDP, countries which have not imposed sanctions account for considerably more than half the world’s population.) The imposition of sanctions, in the face of countersanctions from Russia and high economic and social costs for the sanctioning states, has been an unprecedented demonstration of unity and resolve by Western nations, with some others, in response to Russia’s escalation of a brutal war, its existential threat to the sovereignty of a neighbouring state, and its disregard for the fundamental principles of the UN Charter. The sanctions have undoubtedly imposed significant economic and material costs on Russia, affecting its ability to deploy military equipment and to finance the costs of its war. As Russia continues its war, so sending states continue to impose new sanctions, in a strategy designed to counteract loopholes and to ratchet up pressure.