Putin v. Purse Power: Confronting International Laws, Russian Style

Since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine against international laws in 2014, the United States and European Union have imposed sanctions to punish Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin. The article addresses a debate as to whether these sanctions have been effective and argues that they have been. The seeming lack of progress—Crimea remains under the Russian control—comes from the false expectations of an immediate success. It also has been largely unnoticed that sanctions have worked in conjunction with additional legal means against Russia’s other infringements on international laws such as gas price gouging, violating shareholders’ rights, or illegally appropriating industrial and business infrastructures outside of the country.