Western sanctions on Russia are reshaping the country’s economy but not in the way many initially expected. According to Wojciech Jakóbik, an energy security analyst at the Energy Security Center, sanctions have failed to act as a quick fix, yet are steadily transforming Russia from a petrostate into what he calls a “war state.” “Sanctions are not the final solution of the issue of Russian imperialism,” Jakóbik said, adding that they must be paired with sustained military and political support for Ukraine. On their own, he argued, sanctions cannot end the war, but they can alter the economic foundations that sustain it. Jakóbik pointed to Russia’s declining dependence on oil and gas revenues as evidence that structural pressure is mounting. Even Russia’s finance minister, Anton Siluanov, has acknowledged that the country’s economic engine is shifting away from energy exports toward wartime production. “So Russian petro-state is becoming more and more the war state,” Jakóbik said. However, he warned that Western sanctions policy remains incomplete. Russia continues to export large volumes of hydrocarbons, while countries in Asia and the Global South help Moscow circumvent restrictions. The absence of comprehensive secondary sanctions, he said, remains a critical vulnerability. Jakóbik also highlighted growing divergence among Western allies. While the European Union has continued to tighten sanctions, the United States has taken a more cautious approach, partly to preserve diplomatic leverage. That imbalance, he said, undermines the logic of sanctions escalation, whose purpose is to force behavioral change. Without further tightening, particularly in the energy sector and enforcement against Russia’s shadow fleet, Moscow will remain capable of financing the war despite mounting economic distortions, Jakóbik warned. Sanctions, he concluded, may not end this conflict. But applied consistently and enforced rigorously, they could make the next one economically impossible.
