With his yacht seized and two private jets grounded, Russian billionaire Igor Makarov was forced to fly across Europe with budget carrier easyJet.
The founder of Russia's first independent gas company was among the scores of businessmen who had assets frozen under Western sanctions at the outset of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"What is the meaning of these sanctions against me? What do they achieve? They don't help Ukraine," Mr Makarov said in late 2023.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into his neighbour's territory in February 2022, the West not only took aim at the country's elites.
The financial, military, and energy sectors were targeted in order to weaken the Russian economy, punish Mr Putin and choke off financial support for his war.
But more than three years on, the Russian president appears unfazed by what was cast as the most severe sanctions in modern history.
After an initial slump of minus 1.4 per cent at the start of the invasion, the country's gross domestic product (GDP) has recovered with growth rates of 4.1 per cent and 4.3 per cent in 2023 and 2024, according to the International Monetary Fund.
[Graph: GDP growth]Over the past year, Russia's richest people also saw their wealth rise by more than 8per cent to $US625.5 billion ($967 billion), Forbes reported.
The total number of Russian billionaires on the magazine's wealthiest people list also rose to 146 from 125 a year ago.
In recent weeks, the European Union unveiled an 18th round of ambitious sanctions, mainly targeting Russia's oil and gas exports, which play a crucial role in funding Mr Putin's war machine.
US President Donald Trump has also threatened Moscow with punishing new sanctions if a ceasefire is not agreed by August 8.
But he admitted that he did not know whether sanctions "bothered" Mr Putin, and that Russia had found ways around certain measures.
"They're wily characters and they're pretty good at avoiding sanctions, so we'll see what happens," he said.
A barrage of sanctions
Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world.
Australia is among a coalition of Western allies, including the US, the EU, UK, Canada, Japan, and others, that have imposed a raft of far-reaching unilateral sanctions against the country.
They have focused on isolating Russia from the global financial system, reducing the profitability of its energy sector, and weakening its ability to finance the war.
[Graph: Most sanctioned countries]According to data collected by Castellum.AI, more than 21,690 sanctions have been placed on the country between February 2022 and January 2025.
These were mainly against entities and individuals.
Statistica puts the figure at more than 28,500, including 16,037 on individuals, 9,286 on companies, and 3,249 on institutions.
Anton Moiseienko, a senior lecturer at the Australian National University's College of Law, said the sanctions regime was vast and varied.
But sanctions placed on financial systems, oil, and individuals were among the most important.
"That has included oligarchs, military leaders, propagandists, and others who were in some way deemed to be enabling or supporting Russia's activities," Dr Moiseienko said.
[chart: What is targeted]Freezing the financial sector
The coalition of Western allies have prohibited transactions with Russia's central bank and finance ministry.
A recent report by the US Center for Strategic and International Studies found that about 70 per cent of assets within the Russian banking system were now under sanctions, "crippling its financial sector".
About $US300 billion ($464 billion) of central bank assets have been frozen in foreign jurisdictions.
Last year, foreign direct investment in the country fell by 63 per cent, according to UN trade data.
Several Russian banks have also been barred from Swift, a global financial messaging network used by thousands of banks to help transfer cross-border payments.
[Map: Countries sanctioning Russia]Caps on oil prices, and placing travel bans and asset freezes on key figures had further "limited Russia's economic manoeuvrability", Philip Luck, director of the Center for Strategic and international Studies Economics Program, said.
The Washington-based think tank estimates that the measures have deprived Russia of more than $US500 billion ($769 billion) that it could have put toward its war effort.
Taking aim at energy profits
Russia is richly endowed with natural resources.
Before the full-scale Ukraine invasion, Russia was one of the largest producers and exporters of natural gas, the third largest oil producer, and the second largest oil exporter, according to the World Bank.
In 2021, prior to the full-scale Ukraine invasion, a quarter of all energy consumed in the EU came from Russia.
Western allies have sought to break Russia's ability to make profits from its energy sector by placing import bans and price caps on some products, including Russian crude oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal.
The EU has banned seaborne Russian oil imports and all forms of Russian coal.
This year, the EU also pledged to fully end imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027.
[Chart: sanctions growth]The US has taken similar restrictive measures.
When announcing bans on imports of Russian oil and gas in 2022, then US president Joe Biden said the country was "targeting a main artery of Russia's economy".
Last year, the US also barred imports of Russian enriched uranium, cutting off another major source of revenue for Russia.
[Graph: Russia oil exports]Dr Moiseienko said the energy sector sanctions were having an impact but were "fragmented" and "riddled with qualifications".
A loophole had allowed sanctioning countries to import products made from Russian crude oil refined in third countries, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
The US and EU still import billions of euros worth of Russian energy and commodities, ranging from liquefied natural gas to enriched uranium.
Russia had also built up a "shadow fleet" of ships — without clear ownership — which circumvent international sanctions to allow it to continue to export oil.
[chart: who sanctioned Russia]The US has said it stopped short of "seeking to restrict Russian energy trade worldwide and related financial transactions".
"The reason why the sanctions regime is the way it is, is because there was a fear that if you completely shut off the supply of Russian oil to the world, then the price is going to rise," Dr Moiseienko said.
The US and its G7 allies have implemented rules aimed at capping the price that other importing countries pay for Russian crude oil.
But Russia was still generating significant revenue from oil exports to major trading partner such as India and China.
India's imports from Moscow surged to $US65.7 billion in 2024 from $8.25 billion in 2021, data from the Indian Commerce Ministry website showed.
Crude oil has been the biggest driver of the growth in India's imports from Russia, jumping to $52.2 billion in 2024 from $2.31 billion in 2021.
Mr Trump has threatened to impose "secondary tariffs" of up to 100 per cent on countries that buy goods — primarily energy — from the Russia.
This week, he imposed an additional 25 per cent tariff on Indian imports as a punishment for buying Russian oil.
The White House has flagged more announcements in the coming days.
Are sanctions working?
A report by the US Congressional Research Service said that early in the war, the broad consensus was that the new sanctions would devastate the Russian economy.
"By some metrics, though, Russia's economy has proved resilient to date," it said.
Russia had transitioned to a wartime economy, increasing military production and military personnel payments that had helped boost GDP.
It was also able to pivot to other economic partners.
China, India, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye are among the major emerging-market economies that have not sanctioned Russia.
But even though Russia's economy had "exceeded expectations", the report added that sanctions had still created challenges for Russia.
As a result of the coalition actions, inflation and interest rates had surged.
Russia's central bank raised interest rates to 21 per cent in October, the highest level in decades.
Mr Putin has acknowledged that inflation and "a certain overheating of the economy" were "issues".
More could be done
The Kremlin continues to argue that it has developed an immunity to sanctions.
Dr Moiseienko said the sanctions "haven't succeeded yet", but there was still a strong place for the regimes.
"They are making Russia's life more difficult. They are making it more difficult for Russia to make money to source components necessary to wage its war," he said.
Philip Luck from the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the sanctions had caused "profound impact", pointing to the fact that the Russian economy of three years ago no longer existed.
"While economic measures alone may not be enough to secure a just and lasting peace, such a peace cannot be achieved without them," he wrote in analysis.
Moving forward, Dr Moiseienko said there needed to be stronger actions and a full commitment from countries to eliminate existing loopholes.
"The story of Russian sanctions so far is there's always a caveat somewhere there that's constraining those sanctions from having maximum effect," he said.
He said a number of extra measures could be taken across all categories, including a complete ban on Russian oil supplies to the world.
He was also in favour of secondary tariffs on countries buying Russian oil.
"And in relation to financial sanctions, this is an area where the US is really the world's pre-eminent power," Dr Moiseienko said.
"It could impose more far-reaching financial sanctions and basically shut Russia off from the global financial system."
