Revisiting the Effectiveness of Economic Sanctions Vis-À-Vis a Counter Response by the Target State : The Case of Russia

Since the inception of economic sanctions they have been effectively been used as a diplomatic tool and policy effectively being used to ensure that world peace is maintained. In recent years it has gained more popularity and has been used in several occasions in an effort to deter a target state from actions that amount to breach of peace both internally in the target state and externally. Although, there is lack of a conclusive evidence regarding whether or not economic sanctions have been an effective policy instrument tool. Ideally economic sanctions tend to have chameleon like characters, in that the effect or impact it is supposed to have does differ from one target state to another. This research seeks to analyze how a target state who is subject to economic sanctions may retaliate in terms of responding to the economic sanctions imposed. This paper will deal with how the Russian federation has effectively and successfully sailed through economic sanctions imposed om her since the invasion of Crimea in 2013 and currently in 2022. This will be explained in details through how Russia also came up with counter measures responding to economic sanctions imposed on her which has even led to greater impact on the sender states rather than what was to be achieved in Russia. Thus economic sanctions seem to have less impact whenever the target state is a “superpower” with sufficient powers to retaliate and course more harm to the sender and in doing so this paper will use Russia as a case study analysis. This research will conclusively show how economic sanctions met with countermeasures from the target state have seemed to be in effective and also effective at a small percentage