Sanctions Are Not Punishment: What Ukrainian Sanctions Policy Is Missing – Center for Journalistic Investigations

Since 2014, economic sanctions have become one of the key instruments used by the European Union, the United States, and a number of other countries to respond to Russian aggression against Ukraine. Over this time, a whole cohort of state and non-state experts has emerged in Ukraine, working closely with international partners to increase pressure on the Russian Federation and deprive it of the resources to continue its aggression, as well as to prevent Russian legal entities and individuals from evading imposed restrictions.

At the same time, there exists in Ukraine a separate world of national sanctions policy, grounded in the Law of Ukraine “On Sanctions” of 2014. Conceptually, Ukrainian sanctions policy has little in common with the policy of Western countries, and the actions of Ukrainian officials often contradict even its own imperfect legislation. This, in turn, leads to violations of citizens’ rights and the creation of legal conflicts. A draft law No. 12406, which would establish liability for violating sanctions, was submitted to the agenda of the current session of the Verkhovna Rada. Alongside it, draft law No. 5191 “On the Principles of Ukraine’s Sanctions Policy,” developed back in 2021, should be considered and revised, and it is finally also on the agenda.

The Absence of a Ukrainian Sanctions Policy

President Zelenskyy issues sanctions on a new group of individuals or legal entities on average about once a week. In 2025 he signed 63 such decrees. As of 13 August in 2026, there were already 49 such decrees. According to the state sanctions registry, as of mid-September 2026 sanctions were imposed on 13 900 individuals, 9 682 legal entities, and 888 vessels. But the number of people placed on sanctions lists is not synonymous with an effective sanctions policy.

The Ukrainian approach to sanctions differs significantly from the Western one primarily because in Ukraine sanctions are often perceived as a form of punishment of a specific individual or legal entity for certain actions. In Western practice, the logic is fundamentally different. Sanctions are first and foremost a tool of pressure in foreign and security policy. The Council of the European Union explicitly emphasizes that “sanctions are not punitive by nature.” Rather, they are aimed at achieving a change in the policy or behavior of those targeted in order to further the goals of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. In its explanation of its sanctions policy toward Russia, the EU states: “These measures are intended to achieve the objectives of EU policy — to stop Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine — by maximising pressure on Russia and using all available tools to reduce Russia’s capacity to wage its unlawful aggressive war.” A country can be targeted through the aggregation of its citizens, as Russia, for example, is targeted by freezing the assets of its oligarchs.

The Council of the EU building in Brussels. Photo: Winfried Rothermel

The difference between economic sanctions and punishment is that criminal and administrative penalties for crimes are strictly regulated in criminal and administrative law. Crimes are clearly described, the state must prove that the person committed them, and the person has the opportunity to defend themselves in court. Sanctions, however, are an instrument of foreign policy. Decisions about their application are made at the political level. Lifting sanctions (at least in theory) depends on whether their objectives have been met or whether the sanctioned person has changed their behavior. They can also be part of bargaining during negotiations, when sanctions are promised to be lifted in response to a change in behavior. No one bargains over lifting a criminal sentence from a criminal.

To achieve sanctions’ objectives, relevant agencies collect and analyze information about who is responsible for the unwanted policy, which companies, financial flows, or sectors support it, and which restrictions could affect it. In the US, this work involves, among others, the financial intelligence units at the US Department of the Treasury and the relevant structures of the State Department, including overseas posts. Their work is coordinated on the basis of the National Security Council. The results of this analytical work then form the basis for compiling sanctions lists.

The US Department of the Treasury. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP

Sanctions that emerge as an output are called targeted. The Council of the EU document that acknowledges the main principles for applying sanctions states that they should be calibrated to maximise their impact on the behavior of the identified persons or entities. “At the same time, their implementation should minimise negative humanitarian and other unintended consequences for persons who are not the subject of sanctions, as well as for neighboring countries.” That is, between the decision “we want to apply sanctions” and the appearance of a specific person on a sanctions list there is a separate analytical and interagency process. And it must lead to the emergence of an effective instrument of pressure, or, as in the case of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, to the limitation of capabilities.

In Ukraine the logic looks radically different. First, the decision about the purpose of sanctions is not political; it is regulated by the Law “On Sanctions.” It is “the protection of national interests, national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, countering terrorist activity, as well as preventing violations, restoring violated rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of citizens of Ukraine, society and the state.” Second, there is no coordinating body in Ukraine to coordinate the work of proposing entities. Neither the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) nor its office, which is a separate legal entity, participate in preparing sanctions. The NSDC only takes the final decision. The proposing entities (most often the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine, and sometimes the Cabinet of Ministers) compile sanctions lists based on their own understanding of national security protection. The SBU can even classify the grounds for its decisions.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (right) and Vladyslav Vlasiuk, presidential adviser — presidential commissioner of Ukraine for sanctions policy. Instead of creating a specialized authority to conduct sanctions policy, during Andriy Yermak’s leadership the President’s Office introduced the position of commissioner, not provided for by the Law on Sanctions. Photo: Facebook/Vladyslav Vlasiuk

Also, it does not appear that an analysis of the impact of sanctions on a specific subject is conducted, since almost the entire range of measures listed in the law is applied to the majority of them. And this does not depend on whether it will have any effect on them. While the NBU at least does not apply measures that obviously cannot concern an individual (for example, “prohibition or restriction of entry of foreign non-military vessels and warships into the territorial sea of Ukraine, its internal waters, ports, and aircraft into the airspace of Ukraine or landing in the territory of Ukraine”), such illogic does not stop the SBU. Another example is the freezing of assets and the ban on capital transfers from Ukraine applied to Russian propagandists and many other foreign nationals. For such a measure to have an effect, they must have assets and capital on the territory of Ukraine. That is unlikely.

The imposition of Ukrainian sanctions for definite terms without a regular review mechanism, as is the case in the EU, most likely stems from understanding sanctions as a tool of punishment. This approach makes it impossible to use them as a bargaining tool in foreign policy. Although, as analysis shows, this is not the only reason. If sanctions are not calibrated to specific pain points or key persons who can and should be pressured, there is nothing to bargain about. You cannot promise to stop a pain you did not cause.

Sanctions Against One’s Own Citizens

A separate topic is the application of sanctions to one’s own citizens. While in Ukrainian sanctions lists 4 593 the entries are either individuals who are citizens of Ukraine or enterprises registered on its territory, the number of such cases in the US or EU can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Mostly, those were people with dual citizenship, and such decisions provoked outrage from human rights organizations and led to their being overturned in court.

One of the most high-profile cases occurred after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, when the Council of the EU introduced counter-terrorism sanctions. The measures targeted the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), members and representatives of which in Europe included persons with citizenship of EU member states, including France. Their accounts were blocked and financial operations restricted on accusations of organizing terrorist activity. In response, the organization’s branches and members filed a suit with the General Court of the EU (case T-228/02). The result was the Court’s annulment of the Council of the EU’s administrative decisions to include the organization and its representatives on the blacklist. The EU Court motivated this by stating that the Council of the EU had completely violated the claimants’ procedural rights: they were not provided with any materials and evidence of the accusations, were not given the opportunity to present their position, and the reasons for blocking assets were not substantiated.

A US court decision in a similar case is even clearer. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) froze the assets of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation Inc., which was registered in Oregon and was run by American citizens. The basis was suspicion of transferring funds to extremist groups. The founders sued the federal government, claiming the government’s actions were illegal. The district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and found the freezing of assets unconstitutional. The court based this on violations of the Fourth and Fifteenth Amendments, noting that the government has no right to freeze the assets of US legal entities without a court order and without disclosing case materials to the plaintiff.

In Ukraine presidents regularly impose sanctions on their own citizens and legal entities. This practice regularly sparks controversy in society, but there is still no Constitutional Court decision on the matter. At the same time, there is a decision of the European Court of Human Rights, which found a violation of the right of M.S.L. LLC to peaceful enjoyment of possessions and the right to an effective remedy due to the blocking of the company’s assets on the basis of a presidential decree imposing sanctions. The Court found that the sanctioning decisions did not contain individualized justifications regarding the company, and national courts (including the Supreme Court) refused to verify the factual grounds and the reliability of the Security Service of Ukraine’s accusations, limiting themselves to a merely formal review of procedure, thereby depriving the applicant of adequate procedural guarantees against arbitrariness.

But in addition there is a practical side to the issue. In Ukraine there is a reasonable consensus that imposing sanctions on pro-Russian publications, pro-Russian media, and their owners before the full-scale invasion prevented them from undermining Ukrainians’ unity at a critical moment. Yes, it may not have been entirely constitutional, but it helped Ukrainians to unite when that was necessary. However, the continuation of such practice raises increasing questions.

Former presidential press secretary of Ukraine Yuliia Mendel. Photo: president.gov.ua

If the imposition of sanctions against former presidential press secretary Yuliia Mendel was intended to silence her, it obviously failed. Despite being subjected to 17 types of sanctions (including termination or suspension of special permits for subsoil use), she still spoke at the European Parliament at an event organized by the Alternative for Germany party (AfD, German: Alternative für Deutschland) and continues to publish pieces in foreign media. Moreover, Zelenskyy’s decision provides grounds for accusations of authoritarianism and unwillingness for peace. “Volodymyr Zelenskyy uses them [sanctions] against everyone who promotes the idea of peace in Ukraine,” Mendel wrote on Twitter. This post also makes clear that blocking access to social networks from Ukrainian territory obviously does not affect a person who resides abroad.

Also, imposing sanctions on one’s own citizens leads to legal collisions, since, for example, Ukraine already has mechanisms for bringing people to criminal responsibility for terrorism, as well as a procedure for compiling a list of persons connected with terrorist activity, which is formed on the basis of the law on countering the legalization of proceeds of crime. Thus, with the adoption of the Law “On Sanctions” uncertainty arose as to when to apply which procedure. The Institute of Legislative Ideas points to these collisions and the negative consequences for uninvolved citizens in its analysis, although it does not consider them to be caused specifically by applying sanctions to one’s own citizens. However, collisions arise precisely because parallel procedures were introduced.

The cited court decisions, as well as legislative collisions, add arguments in favor of the idea that sanctions should not be used as a way to circumvent criminal procedure. Such practice mixes two fundamentally different instruments of state policy: foreign-policy pressure and domestic law enforcement. Therefore, Ukrainian legislation must clearly define the boundary between the sanctions mechanism and law enforcement activity. If a citizen of Ukraine is involved in criminal activity, priority should be investigation, trial, and punishment, not administrative inclusion on a sanctions list.

Unrealized Reforms

Draft law No. 5191 “On the Principles of Ukraine’s Sanctions Policy,” initiated by a group of people’s deputies as early as 26 February 2021, proposed a systemic reform of some of the elements of sanctions policy whose shortcomings are described above.

The main innovation of the bill was the creation of a Bureau for Sanctions Policy as a working body of the NSDC. The Bureau would have brought together representatives of at least twelve authorities, from the Foreign Intelligence Service to the Ministry of Culture and the State Border Guard Service, and it would have prepared a mandatory opinion on each sanctions proposal before it was put before the NSDC. A Consultative Council of scholars, human rights defenders, and investigative journalists was also to be created under the Bureau. This is exactly the analytical and interagency process whose absence distinguishes Ukrainian practice from the Western one.

Draft law No. 5191 also needs provisions that would exclude the application of sanctions to Ukrainian citizens who are within the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian law enforcement system. In view of plans to adopt a law introducing liability for violating sanctions, a clear delineation between foreign-policy pressure and domestic law enforcement becomes even more urgent. If today’s approach is not changed, the introduction of penalties will not bring Ukraine closer to European practice, but will create a situation in which the state forces Ukrainian citizens to submit to unlawful measures of the state. And that would more likely return us to the USSR.