Ukraine

The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office has increasingly used sanctions designations to target those involved in undermining the oil price cap. The US – widely considered to be the western world’s most aggressive sanctions enforcer – has relied heavily on this approach. Gonzalo Saiz Erausquin, a research fellow and sanctions specialist at RUSI, says that while tactics such as disruption and designations make circumvention harder for Russia, the UK government is underestimating the value of strong enforcement to act as a deterrent. ‘In the end, we’re just forcing them to another alternative structure or jurisdiction; we’re not necessarily ending that activity,’ he says.

Three years have passed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Are the sanctions imposed by the international community against Russia working? Tom Keating, Director of the Centre for Financial Security at the Royal Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in the United Kingdom, likens sanctions to 'a puncture from which air gradually escapes', pointing out that even if they do not have an immediate effect, they are steadily eroding Russia's technological and economic capabilities.

By assassinating Russia's top military officials, Ukraine is trying to demoralise the people on which the war depends, security analyst Mark Galeotti has said. Kyiv's security service is believed to be behind this morning's bomb attack in Moscow that claimed the life of Igor Kirillov, Russia's head of nuclear, biological and chemical defence forces. Mr Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at defence thinktank RUSI and the author of We Need To Talk About Putin, wrote in The Spectator that these kinds of assassinations have been "ramping up" and the reasons behind them are multidimensional.