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Abstract
The “sanctions tsunami” against Russia is rightly considered unprecedented since the end of the Cold War. Strictly speaking, it is very difficult to find a suitable analogue of the current situation even in earlier periods. Despite the fact that the sanctions’ target is a major nuclear power, such a consolidated pressure from a coalition of almost fifty states, which account for more than 60% of the world’s GDP, clearly defies the usual stereotypes. Almost all known instruments of sanctions are being used against Russia, including blocking sanctions, trade restrictions, transport bans, and even such exotic measure as an oil price cap. In addition, all these measures were introduced in a record-breaking period of time by historical standards—they hit Russia within a matter of months. 2022 will go down in the history of political economics and international relations as the year of “big sanctions” and will certainly be studied as a special and unique case. But is the “sanctions tsunami” of 2022 so unique? The accumulated literature on the topic of sanctions suggests that in the unique situation of 2022, a number of regular and already-known plots can be traced.
Of course, 2022 has also revealed a number of new factors. These include large-scale corporate boycotts, which manifested themselves in the withdrawal of hundreds of Western companies from Russia, even in areas that were not formally affected by the sanctions. A major psychological role in the behaviour of Russia’s counterparties in both friendly and unfriendly countries is played by the threat of secondary sanctions and criminal prosecution for circumventing sanctions. Even here, however, only the scale can be considered new. The excessive enforcement of the sanctions legislation, the fear of secondary sanctions and coercive measures were known from the Iranian case. Corporate boycotts were traced in connection with the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, although, of course, not to the same extent.
All things considered, we can talk about the relative novelty of the sanctions in terms of the number and intensity of the measures applied. However, for a number of qualitative characteristics, they contain patterns that have been well studied in the past. Time will tell how much quantitative changes can affect qualitative patterns.