Can sanctions stop the Russian Federation (RF) in its war of choice against Ukraine? The answer to this question requires an inquiry into the indirect but non-trivial link between the economic effect of the sanctions and political decisions about war and peace. To the best of our knowledge, such an inquiry, quite amazingly, has not been done yet. At the same time, considering the longer-term political, economic, and institutional factors, along with the respective expectations of the involved actors, substantially alters the picture and leads to important implications.

Read the authors’ inquiry here.

Vladimir Dubrovskiy is a political economist based in Kyiv (Senior Economist at CASE Ukraine).

Janusz Szyrmer, a macroeconomist, has served as an advisor to the governments of Ukraine and several other emerging market countries.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.