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Sanctions

Economic or financial penalties imposed by one state or coalition against another, intended to change behavior by imposing costs. The sanctions and reserve-freeze regime against Russia (2022-) is, by scale, without real historical precedent, though its effectiveness is best judged against several distinct possible objectives — halting an invasion outright, imposing lasting economic cost, degrading long-term military-industrial capacity — rather than a single pass/fail verdict, since adaptation mechanisms (the shadow fleet, third-country intermediation) blunted, without eliminating, the sanctions' bite over 2023-2024.

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