WASHINGTON DC – For nearly three years, Western officials have argued that sanctions on Russia are cumulative, adaptive and effective. On Tuesday at the Brookings Institution, European ambassadors largely reaffirmed that view – but paired it with an unusually candid assessment of where the West fell short.
The failure, several diplomats suggested, was not whether sanctions worked, but how slowly and cautiously pressure was applied, particularly in the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Fear of escalation, concerns about energy markets and limits on Ukraine’s military capabilities gave Moscow time to adapt, spread false narratives and entrench the conflict.
Across the panel, the message was consistent: Russia is paying a heavy economic price – but Western hesitation shaped the battlefield and prolonged Russia’s war in Ukraine.
‘These narratives are wrong’
Sweden’s ambassador to the US, Urban Ahlin, opened with a blunt rejection of Kremlin talking points – claims that Russia’s economy is thriving, sanctions are useless and Moscow is winning militarily.
“All these three narratives are wrong,” Ahlin said.
On the battlefield, he dismissed the idea that incremental Russian advances amount to success. “The Russians are winning meters after meters, but are losing lots of men,” he said.
“Is this actually winning a war? No – it’s actually about losing a war,” he emphasized.
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Ukraine, Ahlin argued, is fighting exactly as a smaller country must: by imposing costs so severe that conquest becomes self-defeating.
He likened Kyiv’s strategy to Sweden’s Cold War defense doctrine, which focused on deterrence through attrition rather than outright victory.
“We knew the Russians could beat us,” he said of Sweden’s military planning, adding, “But we wanted to harm them so much that it was not worth trying to take us. That is what the Ukrainians are doing.”
A war Russia cannot sustain indefinitely
European Union Ambassador Jovita Neliupšienė laid out the scale of Russia’s economic strain.
Moscow, she said, has lost roughly $450 billion to $500 billion in assets, including at least $200 billion in sovereign funds frozen in Europe, alongside far larger losses in private capital.
Russia is now spending between 6 and 8 percent of GDP on its military – more than during the Cold War. Even more revealing, she noted, is how the state has redirected public resources.
“Forty percent of their public spending goes actually to their military,” Neliupšienė said – a level of distortion that may be possible in an authoritarian system, but is “not really sustainable.”
Russia, she added, is now stuck in a war that has lasted longer than World War II did for the Soviet Union – and against a smaller neighbor. “It should be embarrassing,” she said, diplomatically.
While Moscow may be able to continue fighting for some time, she cautioned, the economic and social strain is accumulating in ways that will eventually become untenable.
Facts speak against narrative
From London’s perspective, the economic evidence tells the same story.
Lucy Ferguson, the UK’s acting deputy head of mission in Washington, said British estimates show sanctions have already deprived President Vladimir Putin of more than $450 billion – “equivalent to two years of funding the war against Ukraine.”
She pointed to Russia’s newly announced 2026–2028 federal budget, which projects declining revenues and persistent deficits.
“If you examine that budget, it is evident that the Russian economy is in real decline,” Ferguson said. “All of these facts really speak to the effect that sanctions are having.”
Energy measures, she added, have been particularly impactful, directly constraining Russia’s GDP and its ability to finance the war.
Sanctions don’t change behavior overnight
Lithuanian Ambassador Gediminas Varvuolis emphasized that sanctions were never likely to produce an immediate shift in Kremlin decision-making.
Russia’s leadership, he said, is prepared to endure extraordinary sacrifices in pursuit of what it views as a historic mission.
But that does not make sanctions ineffective.
“They drain the resources of the regime and make their life very difficult,” Varvuolis said.
Sanctions, he added, have also forced Europe to confront its own vulnerabilities, dismantling decades-long dependence on Russian energy and infrastructure.
“Sanctions work for us as well,” he said, pointing to Europe’s growing focus on alternative transport and energy corridors.
Regrets about restraint
The panel’s most candid reflection came when Ahlin turned from Russia’s failures to the West’s caution.
“I actually think that we could have changed the Russian behavior if we would have been a little bit more dramatic and much harder in the beginning,” he said.
Early decisions – including the $60 oil price cap, limits on long-range weapons and restrictions on strikes inside Russia – reflected deeper anxiety about escalation, Ahlin argued.
“We have been nervous that they’re going to use tactical nukes or go totally crazy and do something,” he said.
As a result, Western governments applied pressure gradually, aiming to “tame the Russian bear” rather than confront it decisively. That approach, he suggested, carried real costs.
“We can blame ourselves that we were not more pushy in the beginning,” Ahlin said. Had Ukraine received earlier access to the weapons it has today, “the world would have been looking totally different.”
The lesson, he concluded, is clear: “Next time this happens, we need to be much more fast-forward and tougher.”
Choking shadow fleet
The discussion also highlighted how sanctions strategy has evolved – particularly in targeting Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of oil tankers used to evade price caps and export restrictions.
The UK and EU have sanctioned hundreds of vessels; Britain alone has designated more than 520.
“This has absolutely been a very intentional strategy,” Ferguson said, stressing that its greatest impact comes when allies act in concert. Many of these ships, she noted, also carry goods for Russia’s military-industrial complex.
Varvuolis was more blunt. The shadow fleet, he said, is “the monster of our own creation,” and Western governments have a “moral duty to Ukrainians” to shut it down completely.
Neliupšienė added that targeting ships alone is insufficient. “One ship means a system,” she said, arguing for sanctions on the companies, financiers, insurers and third-country intermediaries that keep the fleet operational.
No cheap peace
As the discussion closed, Ahlin offered a final caution.
While everyone wants peace, he said, “we don’t want a peace that will actually harm the European security architecture for decades to come.”
Negotiations that let Russia “off the hook,” he warned, risk erasing the war’s central lesson – that aggression must carry a price.
The diplomats at Brookings were clear: sanctions are biting, Russia is under strain and Ukraine is holding.
The harder reckoning lay elsewhere – in the recognition that the West now understands how much pressure was possible, and wishes it had applied it sooner.
