The European Union has declared the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia

The European Union believes that the sanctions imposed against Russia are gradually achieving their goal and are creating serious pressure on the Russian economy. According to Brussels, the Russian Federation's economic model, which is increasingly oriented towards war, may be approaching a critical point.

This was stated in an interview with The Guardian by the EU's special representative for sanctions, David O'Sullivan. According to him, although restrictive measures are not a universal tool and attempts are made to circumvent them, the overall effect of the sanctions is becoming more noticeable.

O'Sullivan stressed that sanctions cannot be considered a "panacea", since circumvention mechanisms will always exist. At the same time, he emphasized that after several years of sanctions, the EU has enough reason to claim that these measures are really working and are gradually undermining Russia's economic stability.

According to a European official, the Russian economy could face serious problems as early as 2026. He attributed this to deep structural imbalances caused by the development of the military economy at the expense of the civilian sector. In his opinion, ignoring fundamental economic laws cannot continue indefinitely.

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union has imposed an unprecedented 19 packages of sanctions. The restrictions have affected more than 2,700 individuals and legal entities, as well as a wide range of industries - from energy and aviation to the IT sector, luxury goods and consumer goods, as well as the diamond and gold market.

A separate direction of the EU's sanctions policy has been the fight against the re-export of European goods to Russia through third countries. Particular attention is paid to components and technologies that can be used or adapted for military needs. According to O’Sullivan, the EU has made some progress in preventing the direct re-export of critical goods through the countries of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Turkey, Serbia, the UAE, and, to a lesser extent, through Malaysia.

The EU representative noted that most cases of circumvention of sanctions are not related to the actions of governments, but to the activities of individual economic operators who tried to take advantage of the situation to make a profit. At the same time, he acknowledged that China “clearly provides support” to Russia, although this assistance does not take the form of direct arms supplies.

In addition, awareness has increased significantly in EU member states about the risks of selling Western technologies to foreign distributors, who can then resell them to Russia. According to O’Sullivan, this problem has not been completely eliminated, but its scale has been significantly reduced.

He also noted the EU's success in countering the so-called Russian shadow fleet - old tankers with opaque ownership structures used to export Russian oil, including to China and India. As of December, almost 600 such vessels were under European Union sanctions.