Russian invasion of Ukraine prompts new sanctions, but what does that mean?

Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many world leaders have threatened the Kremlin with potential sanctions over its aggressive attack.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday a slew of new measures, targeting dozens of people and entities connected to Russia.

But what are sanctions? What do they mean?

Sanctions: an economic tool

According to Jack Cunningham, program coordinator of the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History Expertise at the University of Toronto, imposing sanctions is the act of “taking measures that will increase the economic cost of pursuing the course of action you are trying to discourage.”

That, he adds, can take various forms, such as by cutting off trade or investment.

“Anything that is going to hurt the country you wish to hurt economically,” Cunningham explained Thursday.

But Tina Park, vice president of the NATO Association of Canada, notes that’s a more general explanation of what sanctions are.

“You can speak of sanctions as a tool in international diplomacy, which is intending to exert political pressure so that your adversary behaves in a certain way,” she explained, pointing to sanctions against North Korea as an example of such a use.

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“But as I said, in terms of what they’re doing to Russia, specifically, different countries are going to … adopt different tools to impose a set of very comprehensive sanctions, including Russia’s financial dealings, including trade, as well as some of their assets overseas.”

Governments around the world have already readied new sanctions after weeks of failed efforts for a diplomatic solution between Russia and Ukraine. Those failed attempts came to a head Thursday, when Russian troops invaded Ukraine, with dozens of deaths already reported and fears rising over future devastation.

In addition to Canada’s announcement, other new measures are imminent, after the G7 met virtually Thursday to discuss action.

Sanctions don’t always have to be limited to government-to-government — they can include bans on things like private investments, private loans, and private business deals.

Controversy around sanctions

But do sanctions actually work? In Cunningham’s view, not really.

“Historically, they tend not to be terribly effective, largely because in order to really work, you have to get buy-in from everybody who is in a position to share whatever it is that the aggressor country wants,” he told CityNews Thursday.

While there have been more particular, targeted sanctions over the course of history, Cunningham says most sanctions affect not just the government the measures are targeting but also the people in that country.

“That’s why they’re a comparatively full blunt instrument,” he said. “As a rule, yes, they tend to hurt the civilian populations of the country that’s targeted, and that’s why they’re often controversial.”

He points to examples like the sanctions that were imposed on Saddam Hussein’s regime. Cunningham says those measures largely didn’t hurt him, instead hitting the innocent population.

Park stresses that sanctions are just one of many measures available to governments, and believes there are a number of other tools that we should be employing.

“Sanctions by nature take a long time to be effective,” she explained. “As we see the situation unfold on the ground in Ukraine, while I support sanctions and we should be doing everything we can to affect their economic and financial situation in Moscow, these are frankly not enough.”

Though they can take a while to have their desired effect, Park says sanctions are actually the cheapest action western and NATO countries can take. Sanctions don’t require countries to “put boots on the ground,” and they bring more weight than just political condemnation or issuing Security Council resolutions.

“But sanctions, really, affect … the livelihood of western countries the least, at least in the short-term,” she told CityNews.

Russia has been attacking various parts of Ukraine, hitting the country by air, land, and sea. Dozens of deaths have already been reported.

Travel has been affected to and from Ukraine, and the Canadian government has pulled all remaining diplomats from its embassy.

The situation, though it may feel physically far away for many people, Park admits there are plenty of reasons everyone should care.

“Regardless of where you are, geographically speaking, what we are looking at right now is the first time that a nuclear power like Russia is invading a sovereign, democratically governed country called Ukraine,” she explained. “We are a member state of NATO, the UN, we’re an ally of the United States, and what’s happening is an attack on the free world and democratic countries around the world and the international order that we have believed in for as long as we can remember.

“The fact that Russia is not only willing to threaten the international community with the invasion of Ukraine but actually moving ahead through land, air, and sea and really ignoring all the penance of international law should trouble us.”

Park believes we will see a number of effects as a result of this conflict, including inflation, increasing energy prices, and geopolitical turbulence.