A former British diplomat who personally authorised approximately half of the United Kingdom’s sanctions on Russia has declared that sanctions are not working as an effective tool of foreign policy, raising profound questions about Western strategy regarding Ukraine.
Ian Proud, who served at the British Embassy in Moscow from 2014 to 2019 and subsequently advised UK ministers on sanctions policy, delivered this stark assessment at an Intelligence Squared debate examining whether sanctions function as credible foreign policy instruments. His position carries particular weight given his intimate involvement in designing and implementing the measures now subject to scrutiny.
The Stark Reality: Sanctions Have Not Achieved Their Stated Aims
According to UK sanctions legislation, specifically the Russia sanctions regulations of 2019, the stated purpose was clear: to make Russia cease its destabilising actions in Ukraine and avoid interfering with Ukrainian sovereignty and independence. More than eleven years after sanctions began following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the evidence suggests comprehensive failure on both counts.
The human cost speaks volumes. Since 2022 alone, 5.9 million people have fled Ukraine whilst 3.7 million have been internally displaced. An estimated 1.3 million people, including children, have been killed or injured. Ukraine’s energy infrastructure faces continued bombardment as winter approaches, whilst the country remains completely reliant on approximately £50 billion in annual Western aid to maintain basic governmental functions.
Proud noted that despite more than 20,000 sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, and allied nations making Russia the most sanctioned country globally, the intended deterrent effect has manifestly failed to materialise.
Why International Sanctions Cannot Constrain Putin
The former diplomat identified two fundamental reasons explaining why EU sanctions Russia and broader Western measures have proven ineffective. Firstly, regardless of whether observers consider sanctions morally justified given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Putin views them as fundamentally unjust. This perception, backed by 1.5 million soldiers and 6,000 nuclear missiles, creates an immovable obstacle to sanctions achieving behaviour modification.
Putin has spent 25 years convincing the Russian population that the West seeks to encircle and weaken Russia. Each new sanctions package paradoxically validates this narrative in Russian domestic discourse, strengthening rather than undermining his political position. Even if Putin wished to withdraw from Ukraine, which Proud doubts, the political apparatus he has constructed around himself would likely prevent such a reversal.
The notion that sanctioning wealthy oligarchs residing in London might prompt them to challenge Putin represents what Proud characterised as fantasy. Russian oligarch Oleg Tinkov, who publicly criticised the invasion on Instagram by declaring “the Russian army is shit,” sold his bank under duress within days. The Putin regime has systematically neutralised the oligarch class as a potential source of opposition.
The Coordination Problem: Economic Warfare by Committee
Secondly, sanctions represent economic warfare conducted by committee. Despite NATO members collectively possessing 27 times Russia’s economic weight, the alliance struggles to make decisive moves. Western nations spend months debating optimal strategies whilst Putin observes their discord from across the chessboard. This fundamental coordination failure ensures sanctions cannot outmanoeuvre Russian responses or meaningfully constrain Putin’s decision-making calculus.
Proud revealed a telling statistic: 92 per cent of individual travel restriction sanctions imposed on Russian citizens targeted people who had never visited the United Kingdom and had no intention of doing so. Internal Foreign Office assessments concluded that individual and entity sanctions produce practically no measurable impact of sanctions on Russia within six months of imposition.
The Alternative: Returning to Diplomacy
The former diplomat argued that the West has relied almost exclusively on sanctions whilst refusing to deploy military forces to defend Ukraine and severing diplomatic channels with Moscow. With a diminished military capability and minimal diplomatic presence in Russia, sanctions have become Britain’s entire foreign policy towards the conflict rather than one tool amongst several.
Proud concluded that meaningful progress requires stepping away from what he termed “this primrose path” of sanctions that has consumed eleven years without achieving substantive results. Instead, he advocated for renewed diplomatic engagement and pursuit of a negotiated peace settlement, arguing that the current sanctions-first approach fundamentally fails Ukraine through well-intentioned but ineffective measures.
The debate over why sanctions on Russia continue despite evidence questioning their effectiveness highlights a broader challenge facing Western foreign policy: when diplomatic and military options appear unavailable or unpalatable, economic measures become the default response regardless of their demonstrated limitations.