Western sanctions are having a "significant impact" on the Russian economy, the EU’s sanctions envoy has said, ahead of the fourth anniversary of Moscow`s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, writes The Guardian.

"David O`Sullivan, a veteran Irish official, said sanctions were "not a silver bullet" and would always face circumvention, but insisted that after four years he was confident they were having an effect. "I am fairly bullish. I think that the sanctions have really had a significant impact on the Russian economy," he told the Guardian in a rare interview.

"We may be, in the course of 2026, coming to a point where the whole thing becomes unsustainable, because so much of the Russian economy has been distorted so much by the building up of the war economy at the expense of the civil economy. I think defying the laws of economic gravity can only go on for so long".

O`Sullivan was speaking after weeks of intense Russian attacks on Ukraine`s energy infrastructure as the country endures a bitterly cold winter, with temperatures in Kyiv plunging to -20C this week. Ukrainian counterparts, he said, had told him that Russia had been able to launch twice as many drones and missiles last month compared with January 2025.

But Vladimir Putin`s war machine has not come without a cost to the wider economy, which is thought to be under its greatest strain since the early days of the war. Oil revenues are plummeting, inflation is running at about 6% and interest rates at 16%. O`Sullivan, who has more than four decades` experience in the EU institutions, was appointed EU special envoy for sanctions in December 2022 with a remit to counter their evasion and circumvention.

The EU has imposed an unprecedented 19 rounds of sanctions on Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, targeting more than 2,700 individuals and entities, and halting trade across vast economic areas including energy, aviation, IT, luxury and consumer goods, diamonds and gold. The sanctions envoy said he was "very slow to accuse countries" of not complying with the EU`s wishes, pointing out that "no [non-EU] country in the world is under any obligation to respect our sanctions".

The EU has been on a mission to persuade other countries not to allow the resale of European goods to Russia, especially components that can be used or repurposed for military use.

O`Sullivan said the bloc had had some success in "prevent[ing] the direct re-export of critical products for weapons" through central Asia, the Caucusus, Turkey, Serbia, the UAE and "to a smaller extent" via Malaysia. Most circumvention was down to "economic operators, seeing economic opportunity and making money" rather than orchestrated by governments, he said. But China, with its "no-limits" friendship with Moscow, was an exception. "China is clearly sort of backfilling and providing support" to Russia, although not in the form of direct military equipment supplies, he said.

Several EU leaders had raised this concern with Beijing, he said. "The answer is always the same: `Nothing to see here. We don`t know what you`re talking about. We don`t see any problem`". O`Sullivan said the EU had successfully taken action to counter the Russian shadow fleet – ageing tankers under obscure ownership transporting Russian oil to export markets in China and India. As of December, nearly 600 vessels were under EU sanctions", - reads the article.