Russia has managed to skirt many of the West's sanctions, but they still come at a cost to Putin: economist

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Contributor via Getty Images

• Sanctions against Russia work as they limit access to funding, technology, and oil revenues, an economist told The Conversation.
• Without Western sanctions, Ukraine would be having a harder time in the war with Russia.
• While Russia has managed to circumvent some sanctions, they come at a price.

Russia has managed to circumvent many of the sanctions that have been leveled against it since it invaded Ukraine — but this doesn’t mean they haven’t been effective, a prominent Russian economist told The Conversation in a report published on Wednesday.

“We shouldn’t compare what’s happening now with what we wish to be happening,” Sergei Guriev, a professor of economics and the provost of Sciences Po Paris, told The Conversation.

“We should compare what’s happening now in the presence of the sanctions and would have happened in the absence of the sanctions,” added Guriev, who left Russia in 2013.

The West’s sanctions are impacting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economic regime by limiting its access to funding, technology, and oil revenues — curtailing what Moscow can do in its war with Ukraine, he told The Conversation.

For instance, Putin has managed to circumvent some sanctions by using banks in China, Turkey, and Central Asia, but he’s paying for the access, said Guriev.

“If Putin can circumvent sanctions, it is through third, fourth, and fifth countries that charge him intermediary fees. And the more that is given to intermediaries, the less is put in his pockets and that’s good,” he told the website.

Still, the world needs to tighten sanctions and enforce trade restrictions against Russia, he added.

In December, the US slapped secondary sanctions against Russia, targeting companies that deal with Putin’s regime. On Wednesday, European Union member also agreed to impose new sanctions targeting four Chinese and Indian companies over their ties to Russia.

The move is already creating results.

Since the imposition of the US trade restrictions, banks in China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates have started amping up compliance when dealing with Russian companies.

Three out of China’s Big Four state banks have halted payments from sanctioned Russian financial institutions, Russia’s Izvestia news outlet reported on Wednesday.