Ordinary Russians are no longer allowed to bring cars into the EU, while ardent supporters of Putin and those actively involved in the war are not punished. This plays into the hands of Kremlin propaganda.
Boris Bondarev resigned as a diplomat from the Moscow Foreign Ministry in protest against his home country’s attack on Ukraine. Shortly after the start of the war, he declared in 2022: “I have never been as ashamed of my country as I was on February 24th of this year.” He lives in Switzerland under strict security measures. His book “In the Ministry of Lies” will be published in February.
Boris Bondarev worked as a Russian diplomat for twenty years, most recently at the Russian UN legation in Geneva.
(Photo: private)
The EU sanctions regulation against Russia with number 833/2014 is tough. It generally bans the import of cars with Russian license plates. It doesn’t matter whether they are used privately or commercially. That means every Russian is affected. And whether personal items such as smartphones, laptops and cosmetic cases can be taken into the EU is in the hands of the inspectors when crossing the border. Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, where the EU borders directly on Russia or Belarus, are, from what is known, consistently implementing the EU requirement.
Almost at the same time as the decree, the EU states lifted sanctions against the oligarchs Alexander Shulgin, Farchad Akhmedov and Grigory Berezkin following a ruling by the Court of the European Union. The basis for the sanctions was considered too thin – even though they had helped to consolidate Putin’s regime. They have not issued a single anti-war statement condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine and Putin’s regime.
How does the severity against every single citizen of Russia, regardless of how they feel about Putin, and the leniency for very wealthy businessmen fit together? With this decision, the EU is sending a completely wrong signal to close supporters of the Kremlin: not just to oligarchs, but to everyone who the EU sanctions because they are part of Putin’s power apparatus. Now these people will think: What works for them also works for us. So you don’t have to break with Putin, you don’t have to criticize his war, which violates international law – and you can still get rid of the EU’s punitive measures.
The economy is suffering, but it is finding ways
For me, this is a new, clear indication that the sanctions policy of Western countries is not thought through enough. Immediately after the Russian army’s invasion began, the EU imposed strict conditions against oligarchs and other supporters of the regime.
The Russian economy is suffering from the sanctions. But the industry is finding ways to procure parts, especially for defense production. There are indications that the production of military goods has increased particularly significantly and is exceeding that in Western countries. At the same time, Europe continues to buy Russian raw materials and use them to pay for Putin’s military machine. There are voices in the West calling for even tougher sanctions against Russia, which would also affect Russians abroad who have fled Putin’s rule and staunchly reject the war. At the same time, it is known that a lot of money is still being made in Russia in the West.
This contradiction provokes a corresponding reaction in Russian society, which is cleverly exploited by Putin’s propaganda. It sounds something like this: “Europe is sheer hypocrisy. You think it is the haven of democracy and human rights. They buy gas and oil from us, and in exchange for good money, they supply us with forbidden goods via third countries, of course also goods that… in the defense industry. Your politicians are doing business with us, but at the same time they are saying that you, the ordinary Russians, are to blame for everything – and if you want to leave Russia, you have to cross the border naked.” Many Russians, including those who are skeptical of Putin, then think: There is something to it.
The calculation was probably to use massive sanctions from the entire Western world to worsen the economic situation in Russia to such an extent that the population would feel the effects of the war and become dissatisfied. This would force Putin to change his policies. If that was the case, it was a misconception from the start. It reveals a lack of knowledge about Russia and its people. Russian society and the Russian state do not function like Western democracies – so the sanctions do not work as the West had believed.
The sanctions are not consistent enough
In autocratic or totalitarian states, in which society is effectively not involved in decision-making processes because politics is only in the hands of a few, people habitually believe that they cannot change anything. In fact, they have no influence on what is happening. The state of the economy in no way affects the deterioration of the power position of Putin and his followers. We know this from North Korea, Iran and Cuba – countries that have been heavily sanctioned for tens of years. Serious discontent that threatens those in power can only arise if the situation becomes very difficult for the broad masses: famine due to extreme food shortages, power outages in entire regions, and the like.
So far, this is a long way off in Russia. The country’s economy demonstrates a fairly high level of resilience. And the discontent that exists is not directed against the Putin regime, but against the Western countries that have imposed these punitive measures and continue to intensify them. It is clear that such a harsh sanctions policy with the stick without carrots is more likely to help unite society behind Putin and his adventurous policies than to promote division and disunity. The effect is different than what the initiators of the sanctions course obviously hoped for.
In addition, the punishments are not consistent enough. Many of Putin’s ardent supporters and those actively involved in the war have not been reprimanded – neither by the EU, the USA, Great Britain nor by other countries. At the same time, sanctions imposed on generals in the army and the FSB secret service, who have long been banned from traveling abroad and owning property there, are purely symbolic in nature. They did not lead to a break with Putin. The criteria for inclusion in the sanctions lists are unclear anyway – including how one could be removed again.
Here is my suggestion: A person affected must vow in writing to condemn the war, Putin and his regime. He must agree to actively participate in multilateral efforts to end the aggression. An oligarch, for example, could undertake to help Ukraine financially with arms procurement, humanitarian aid and the reconstruction of the country, but also to support Russian civil society abroad. One should consider setting up a public fund into which (previously) sanctioned people pay. These actions would be verifiable. Only when there are clear and precise guidelines for lifting the penalties can a decision be made as to whether they should be lifted. The West finally needs to think about this. Otherwise Putin will still have an easy time of it.