Following its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is now the most sanctioned country in the world. Currently, 14,081 sanctions have been imposed against Russian individuals, legal entities and organisations, which is five times more than before the recognition of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states on 22 February 2022.
As shown in the chart based on data compiled by Castellum.AI, with the Putin-backed invasion, Russia has overtaken one of the USA's biggest adversaries in Western Asia.
Before the invasion of Ukraine, Iran was the most sanctioned country in world history, with 3,616 active sanctions imposed by the USA, UN, EU, Australia, Canada, India and Israel. Relations between the latter countries and the Islamic Republic have been particularly strained, as disputes regarding Iran's nuclear arsenal and its generally hostile stance towards Israel regularly threatened to escalate.
The majority of sanctions imposed on Syria, which ranks third on the Castellum.AI list, are related to events surrounding the Syrian civil war that began in 2011. Following civil unrest linked to the Arab Spring movement, clashes between the forces of President Bashar al-Assad (Bashar al-Assad) and an ill-fated coalition of foreign and local actors, often at odds on critical issues, triggered a humanitarian crisis, and over half of Syria's 22 million inhabitants have been forced to flee both within the country and abroad over the years.
The current round of sanctions against Russia is led by the USA, Switzerland and Canada, with 1,948, 1,782 and 1,590 restrictions respectively. Most of these sanctions are aimed at individuals, with only 2,210 out of 11,327 sanctions applied to legal entities, vessels or aircraft. These figures do not include sectoral sanctions, such as a general trade embargo on gas or oil. In addition to sanctions imposed by countries and governing bodies, according to researchers at the Yale School of Management, more than 1,000 companies, including industry heavyweights such as Adidas, Google, Disney, Exxon or Volkswagen, have exited the Russian market.
