How are personal sanctions against Russian officials supposed to work?

Question

I understand that most sanctions against Russia are expected to cripple its economy. The war in Ukraine would then become prohibitively expensive, and Russia would have to withdraw. I also see how seizing or freezing the assets of oligarchs which could be used to finance the war might have a similar effect, though luxury assets like yachts and mansions are IMO of low liquidity.

What puzzles me is the expected effect of personal sanctions against Russian government officials. For instance, 386 members of the Russian Parliament (Duma) have been targeted for their support of the treaties that recognised the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. What are these sanctions expected to achieve?

• Sanctions would make those people resign or change their minds. Unlikely. Now that they are denied entry in most of the nice-to-live countries, their only reasonable option is to stay in Russia, and disagreeing with Putin for them would mean not only political suicide, but also a risk of jail or assassination.

• Sanctions would force them to overthrow Putin, or to convince him to stop the war. Also unlikely, they are not close enough to even meet Putin in person. And for the few who are close enough, there seem to be no guarantees that the sanctions are lifted once the war stops, so trying to actually stop it looks like taking a huge personal risk for little benefit.

• Sanctions would prevent them from supporting the war financially. Again, most of those people are not rich enough to make any difference on the country level.

• Sanctions are meant to be simply a punishment. Fair enough, though punishing them doesn't stop the war.

Am I missing a point here? So far the highest Russian official to resign as a protest against the war was Chubais who AFAIK is not under personal sanctions, and was a wedding general of sorts. It looks like sanctions are having the opposite effect, making the support of Putin the only viable course of action for the Russian officials.

Answer 1

It's hard to argue with the points you've made, but I'd make two point on this:

First, I don't think it was fully clear that this would be the result when the sanctions were initially implemented. There certainly was a real hope that Putin might get pushback or realize that he overstepped, or that there was more popular anger and desire to resist the regime which might have pushed him to back off. That might have been a false hope which underestimated the degree or Russia's totalitarianism and Putin's personal isolation, but I think it was there.

Second, sanctions are meant to be a deterrent. So there is still a value for the future in showing the costs of this kind of imperialism. It's possible that it may make some future oligarchs less likely to accept the kind of corrupt bargain that led them to support Putin in Russia.

You can see some of this with in other countries that might be expected to support Russia. For example Kazakhstan is generally considered pro-Russian, and the government recently relied on Russian troops to suppress anti-government protests. However, they've recently stated that they will abide by the sanctions, and explicitly cited the goal of avoiding sanctions on their country:

Secondly, to demonstrate to our European partners that Kazakhstan will not be a tool to circumvent the sanctions on Russia by the US and the EU. We are going to abide by the sanctions. Even though we are part of the Economic Union with Russia, Belarus and other countries, we are also part of the international community. Therefore the last thing we want is secondary sanctions of the US and the EU to be applied to Kazakhstan.

Timur Suleimenov, the first deputy chief of staff to the president of Kazakhstan, speaking with Euractiv on March 29, 2022

It's a faint hope, but aside from arming Ukraine (which is being done) and going to war (which would likely mean the end of the world), sanctions are really the only tool available. In addition, at this point it's too late to take a different approach (if a different approach would have be more effective, which seems unlikely) since a withdraw of sanctions would be seen as a retreat and a victory for Putin.

Answer 2

It's a mistake to see all political actions as designed to have an immediate and concrete effect. Many changes come about because the general disposition of society has shifted. In the West, atitudes to women's rights, the disabled, ethnic and religious minorities etc. have changed over the years often because of cultural changes in society and that has lead to legislative developments, rather than the other way around.

I don't think personal sanctions alone are designed to directly achieve any of the four goals you list. The point of all the sanctions is to create an increasingly uncomfortable political, social and economic environment in Russia, particularly for those who can influence the direction of government policy. Personal sanctions create a sense of uncertainty and dissatisfaction, as do the general financial and cultural sanctions. The hope is that this may tip the balance to find a way out of the current situation at some point; to create a more favourable context when options are put forward to end the war.

Answer 3

They work by denying them access to their money, property and other assets that are in locations outside of the country. This will cause a pressure on them to take action so they don't lose a lot of money and assets because of the seizures. In the end it is designed to encourage them to take action by route of a punishment as there is no other way to encourage/force them to take action.

https://fortune.com/2022/03/10/what-happens-to-russian-oligarchs-seized-yachts-private-jets-and-mansions/

The U.S., U.K., and Europe have announced that the elites who aided Putin's invasion of Ukraine and gained riches at the expense of the Russian people will have their properties blocked from use and their assets frozen.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-03-24/swiss-freeze-more-than-6-billion-worth-of-sanctioned-russian-assets

ZURICH (Reuters) -Switzerland has frozen around 5.75 billion Swiss francs ($6.17 billion) worth of Russian assets covered by sanctions, and that amount is likely to rise, a government official said on Thursday.

"Today, for the first time, I can give you an indication of the amount of frozen funds. To date, SECO has been notified of funds and assets totalling around 5.750 billion Swiss francs," said Erwin Bollinger, a senior official at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) agency overseeing sanctions.

That included a number of properties in cantons which served as tourism resorts, he told a news conference in Bern.

Answer 4

Along with what others have said and to the points you listed in the description of your question, sanctions also serve another, simpler purpose regardless of whether or not they achieve their intended aims: punishment.

Punishment is another purpose of sanctions. Regardless of whether or not the sanctions work to remove the current regime from power or achieve other aims, the US and other sanctioning powers will want to place punitive measures on Russia so that that a large cost is inflicted upon them beyond the costs of financing an invasion. They want Russia and other countries potentially interested in invading peaceful nations to know that there might be costs beyond just those of waging war.