EXPERT COMMENT
The UK's new strategy highlights how clarity of purpose, careful calibration and flexibility can help ensure sanctions regimes are effective.
The UK has played a key role in the design and deployment of economic and financial sanctions over many years, linked in part to its role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to a major escalation in the use of sanctions by G7 countries. While the G7 has been at pains to emphasise that sanctions are part of a broader strategy to support Ukraine in its struggle for survival, they are nonetheless one of the most significant instruments deployed.
The scale and scope of the measures taken have been unprecedented, including freezing at least $300 billion of foreign exchange reserves of Russia's central bank, excluding Russian commercial banks from the SWIFT payments system, and steps to cap the price at which Russia is able to export oil so that the product itself reaches the world market, but Russia's revenues are restricted.
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