Who do sanctions serve?

The first page of 'The Economic Times' of March 16, 2022, emblazoned with the opinion of leaders of corporate India, stated, "75% of CEOs see moderate or no impact of war on economy". Going by the headline, it would appear that for us in India, global upheavals don't mean much. Even if they are as farreaching as sanctions on the Russian Central Bank, where, in an unprecedented move, the United States has frozen its foreign reserves. The Russian currency almost halved compared to early February, before recovering about half of the fall by mid-March. Sanctions against Russia are not new. In fact, before the latest round, Russia was already 'sanctioned against' by Western nations for its annexation of Crimea in 2014. What was different this time, however, was the freezing of assets of the central bank and the removal of Russian banks from SWIFT - a Belgian-based global messaging system for foreign-exchange transactions.

This article was originally published on April 05, 2022.