16/10/2025 | 12:45

Konstantin Egorov

(UAntwerp)

will give a presentation on 

Threat of Sanctions

Abstract

Most sanctions on imports to Russia were imposed immediately after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In that same month, the sanctioning countries promised to escalate sanctions further unless the conflict ended. In line with this threat, we estimate that the subsequent escalation was largely anticipated in advance, with trade flows declining many months before they actually became subject to sanctions. Crucially, this effect was not limited just to sanctioned trade flows: we also identify a wide range of never-sanctioned trade flows that nonetheless could have been perceived as threatened by future sanctions. Overall, our results imply that Russia lost the equivalent of about a month and a half of imports over 2022–23 due to the escalation of sanctions after April 2022, with two-thirds of this loss driven by reductions in non-sanctioned trade flows that were only under the threat of sanctions.