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At present, Iran is the second-most sanctioned country in the world, having been under sanctions for 45 years since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.
Within days of Russia having launched its full-scale aggression against Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the EU included in its third package of sanctions the prohibition of any transaction related to the management of reserves and assets of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), thus immobilising (‘freezing’) approximately €210 billion worth of assets held under EU Member States’ jurisdictions. The non-EU G7 countries (the US, the UK, Canada and Japan), together with Australia and Switzerland, adopted similar measures.
In response to Russia’s illegal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union swiftly adopted unprecedentedly tough sanctions, in close cooperation with partners including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Japan.
The lightning offensive launched in late November 2024 by armed rebel groups spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadi group ruling Idlib in northwest Syria since 2017, led to the toppling of Syria’s six decade-long Baathist regime in less than two weeks.
Ever since the establishment of the (supposedly) Soviet-friendly regime of Kim Il-sung in the northern part of the Korean peninsula in 1948, relations between North Korea and what was initially the Soviet Union and then the Russian Federation have gone from excellent to indifferent and back to (very) good again.
Outraged by Russia’s illegal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union swiftly adopted unprecedentedly tough sanctions, in close cooperation with partners including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Japan.
European Union (EU) restrictive measures (or sanctions) are imposed under the framework of the common foreign and security policy (CFSP), in order to promote the EU’s objectives on the international stage, which include safeguarding the EU’s values, fundamental interests and security; preserving peace and strengthening international security; and consolidating and supporting democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the principles of international law.
The first set of EU sanctions (‘restrictive measures’) against Russia were adopted in March 2014, following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, and its support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
On 24 February 2022, Russia unleashed an undeclared war against Ukraine, a country it had invaded and partially occupied in 2014.
In December 2020, the EU adopted a global human rights sanctions regime (EUGHR SR) enabling it to apply targeted restrictive measures against persons responsible for serious human rights violations and abuses (such as genocide, torture, slavery, extrajudicial killings or arbitrary arrests), and for other human rights violations (such as human trafficking, abuses of freedoms of: peaceful assembly, association, opinion and expression, religion and belief), if widespread and systematic