UK Sanctions Implementation and Strategy Taskforce: First Meeting Report

Any strategy the UK may have been developing for the use of sanctions following the completion of the Brexit process was upended by the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the subsequent imposition of sanctions on Russia.

Given the significant challenges posed by the need to design, implement and enforce sanctions on Russia, and the recent publication of the UK government’s sanctions strategy, RUSI has established a new taskforce to consider how the UK has addressed these challenges and what its independent sanctions policy might be in this dramatically changed sanctions environment.

The taskforce held its inaugural roundtable in June 2024. This report gathers the main findings from the roundtable, and assesses chronologically the establishment of the UK’s independent sanctions framework and the subsequent need to rapidly adapt in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.