Sanctions against Russia are not foredoomed to failure. If the United States wants sanctions to weaken Russia’s war machine, Washington must stop waiting for existing measures to magically change the Kremlin’s behavior. The Trump administration must start closing loopholes, enforcing restrictions, and targeting the revenue streams that finance the war.
For Russia, economic pain does not translate cleanly into political pressure. One reason that current U.S. sanctions are likely insufficient to lead to behavior change is because Russia’s economy is highly resistant to inflation and economic volatility. Just as important, Russian households are less dependent on borrowing than households in many Western economies.
The long-term exposure to inflation has made Russian people more resilient to it by both shaping consumer expectations and changing people’s behaviors to adapt to a high-inflation environment. Consumer behavior has shifted toward more careful spending and saving. This means that tightened monetary policy is less destructive of economic activity and leads to smaller adjustments in consumption in response to changes in interest rates and taxes.
Russians are also less reliant on borrowing compared to Western economies. Household debt stands at roughly 22% of GDP in Russia, compared to nearly 70% in many advanced economies. This significantly limits the direct impact of inflation and interest rate hikes on households. That means that any monetary tightening the Russian regime will implement in response to sanctions wouldn’t impact the Russian economy.
In October 2025, the United States passed a new round of sanctions targeting Russia’s biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. This was a strong move, because in order for sanctions to be effective against an economy like Russia’s, they must target external revenue sources, primarily oil and gas exports. Congressman McCaul even called these revenues “the lifeblood of the Kremlin’s war machine.”
Russia evades sanctions professionally
A second critical reason why the current sanctions are falling short is that Russia has spent four years systematically learning to undermine them and insulating the economy from external pressure. Russia has been able to maintain oil production levels and external revenue by building a shadow fleet of oil tankers to avoid the G7 price cap and using it to transport oil to intermediary countries. Russia relies on over 2,000 vessels to bypass restrictions, but only 216 of these ships have been sanctioned by the U.S.
The problem is not only evasion. It is also fragmentation. A sanctions regime full of carveouts, delays, and weak enforcement gives Russia time to adapt. A 2025 analysis by Novaya Europe found that over 700 Ukrainians were killed by Russian weapons containing Western components, including parts made by U.S. companies Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, and Maxim Integrated Products. When U.S.-made components make it to Ukrainian homes in the form of Russian missiles, US sanctions have clearly failed.
Moscow is not responsive to public opinion
The argument that economic hardship might push Russians to the street ignores Russia’s authoritarian nature and its utter indifference to public opinion.
First, large-scale protest is unlikely in Russia, and it is even less likely to generate political change. Those who do attempt to protest face not only criminal penalties, but also informal forms of repression such as unexplained dismissal from work and persistent harassment. Over decades, Putin’s government became highly effective at suppressing protests before they could expand to become a threat to his power. In the first two years of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nearly 17,000 Russians who opposed the invasion have been penalized in court, with close to 3,000 receiving jail time.
Second, even if Russians did protest at scale, the regime has shown it would not respond. The clearest example is the 2011-2013 Bolotnaya protest movement – the largest demonstrations in modern Russia, with tens of thousands protesting election fraud and demanding Putin’s resignation. The only thing the protests produced was harsher legislation, and Putin remains firmly in power.
Russia is under real strain from Western sanctions. Budget deficits matter. Inflation matters. Stagflation matters. And some argue that existing sanctions are already working. Valerii Kravets argues that sanctions are already causing “cracks in Russia’s wartime economy”—ones that are pointing to a federal budget deficit.
Russia’s 2025 federal budget deficit reached 5.64 trillion rubles, five times what was planned. While such a significant budget deficit is a sign of economic strain, this is not yet sufficient pressure to trigger change. Russia’s war economy can continue functioning under serious stress if export revenues still flow and the regime keeps finding workarounds. That is exactly what Russia has done since 2022. Russia faced a similar deficit in 2022 and responded by adapting — rerouting trade, building new partnerships, and expanding its shadow fleet. Every month sanctions remain unchanged is another month Moscow must find new workarounds.
What can be done? Congress possesses the tools to enforce real change. It can exercise global leadership by passing new sanctions like the Peace through Strength Against Russia Act, the Sanctioning Russia Act, and the Decreasing Russian Oil Profits Act. Sanctions remain one of the most powerful tools the West has to constrain Russia’s ability to fund the war. But the Kremlin has shown that it is economically resilient, politically unresponsive to public pressure, and highly skilled at finding workarounds. Half-measures and patience are not a strategy and Western sanctions must adapt continuously to new Russian realities.
