Sanctions as an Instrument of Geopolitical Competition: Assessing Western Economic Warfare against Russia

The increasing use of economic sanctions in contemporary international relations has transformed economic interdependence into an important instrument of geopolitical competition. This study examines Western economic sanctions against Russia, focusing on their evolution since 2014 and their expansion following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It investigates how sanctions have constrained Russia’s economic, financial, technological, and energy capabilities, while also assessing the extent to which Russian adaptation and alternative economic partnerships have moderated their coercive effectiveness. The study employs a qualitative research design based on systematic analysis of secondary data drawn from international organizations, government institutions, economic databases, and peer-reviewed academic literature. The analysis is guided primarily by the economic statecraft perspective and complemented by the concept of weaponized interdependence. The findings demonstrate that Western sanctions have imposed substantial structural costs on Russia by restricting access to Western finance, advanced technologies, international markets, and key energy channels. However, these economic effects have not translated proportionately into immediate political or strategic compliance. Russia has moderated the impact of sanctions through trade diversion, import substitution, alternative financial mechanisms, energy-market reorientation, and deeper economic relations with non-Western partners, particularly China. The study further finds that sanctions have contributed to a broader restructuring of Russia’s economic relations with the West and encouraged wider processes of financial diversification, supply-chain reconfiguration, and geopolitical fragmentation. Consequently, sanctions have been more effective as instruments of long-term capability constraint than as mechanisms of immediate political compellence. The study argues that the effectiveness of sanctions should therefore be assessed multidimensionally, distinguishing economic pressure from behavioral change. It concludes that Western sanctions represent a significant form of contemporary economic statecraft whose consequences extend beyond Russia to the structure of global economic interdependence and great-power competition.