Lord Leggatt’s powerful dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court case Shvidler v FCDO has exposed a troubling reality about Russian sanctions: they often function as political performance rather than strategic policy, targeting individuals with tenuous connections to Moscow whilst imposing “serious invasion of liberty” based on what the judge characterised as “flimsy reasons.” The case illuminates how sanctions regimes can operate without meaningful judicial scrutiny, catching innocent parties in their sweep whilst failing to achieve any measurable foreign policy objectives.
The Case of Eugene Shvidler
Eugene Shvidler represents precisely the kind of individual whom sanctions were never meant to target. A British and American citizen who has not visited Russia since 2007, Shvidler faces a worldwide asset freeze that prevents him from dealing with any of his own funds or economic resources without government permission. His designation rests on two grounds: association with Roman Abramovich, who is considered connected to the Russian government, and his former role as a non-executive director of Evraz plc, a FTSE-100 mining company with operations in Russia.
Legal analysis published in the Solicitors Journal details how Shvidler made a public statement calling for an end to “senseless violence” in Ukraine and for “the war” to be brought to an immediate end—using language that would constitute a criminal offence in Russia itself. Despite this, and despite having no proven links to the Putin regime, his assets remain frozen more than three years later, with no temporal or geographical limit.
Are Russian Sanctions Working? The Statistics Say Otherwise
The question of whether are Russian sanctions working gains new urgency when examining how they are actually applied. Ian Proud, a former British diplomat who personally authorised approximately half of all UK sanctions against Russia, revealed during a recent policy debate that 92% of individual travel restriction sanctions targeted Russian citizens who had never visited the UK and never intended to. This statistic exposes sanctions as primarily symbolic gestures rather than strategic instruments.
Proud went further, noting that internal Foreign Office advice concluded that “individual and entity sanctions have practically no impact within six months of their imposition.” This assessment, coming from someone deeply involved in implementing the sanctions regime, suggests that sanctions are not working as foreign policy tools but rather as mechanisms for signalling political resolve to domestic audiences.
The Impact of Sanctions on Russia Versus Innocent Individuals
Assessing the impact of sanctions on Russia requires distinguishing between intended strategic effects and actual consequences. Whilst Russia’s energy revenues declined by 19% year-on-year, economist Rebecca Harding noted that “Russia continues to fight its war” with no indication of strategic retreat. The disconnect between economic pressure and policy change becomes particularly stark when compared with the devastating impact on individuals like Shvidler.
Lord Leggatt’s dissent emphasised that making it a criminal offence for an individual “who has done nothing unlawful to deal with any of his own assets without the government’s permission, and imposing this sanction without any geographical or temporal limit, is a serious invasion of liberty.” The licensing system puts government officials in control of even basic survival needs, requiring Treasury permission for essential purchases including food.
Collateral Damage to Families
The consequences extend beyond the designated individual. Shvidler’s former wife and three adult children had banking services withdrawn. His two youngest children were permanently excluded from their schools with immediate effect, leaving them without education mid-academic year. They now continue their education in the United States, their family fractured by sanctions that target their father based on associations dating back decades to entirely legal business activities.
Why Sanctions on Russia Lack Strategic Coherence
Understanding why sanctions on Russia fail to achieve objectives requires examining the arbitrary nature of their application. Lord Leggatt identified three fairness concerns that expose fundamental problems with the sanctions regime. First, Shvidler is being penalised for past associations and activities that were lawful when they occurred. Second, the rationale that it is reasonable to freeze his assets to pressure him to speak out “more robustly” against Russia’s invasion implies it is legitimate for the executive to freeze assets to compel speech supporting government policy. Third, Shvidler faces more severe sanctions solely because of his British citizenship—his worldwide assets are frozen, whereas a Russian citizen would face restrictions only on UK-based assets.
These concerns are compounded by the selective nature of enforcement. Nine of ten directors of Evraz plc resigned at the same time as Shvidler, yet none faced designation. According to uncontested evidence, no current or former director of BP—another UK company heavily invested in the Russian extractives sector through a joint venture with state-owned Rosneft—has been designated. This selectivity undermines any claim that sanctions follow consistent strategic logic.
International Sanctions and the Erosion of Due Process
The constitutional implications extend beyond individual cases. Legal commentary characterises the judgment as evidence of “the death of the separation of powers,” noting that courts now enable unchecked sanctions whilst abandoning meaningful oversight. Lord Leggatt’s dissent warned that “if the courts are not prepared to protect fundamental individual freedoms even in a case like this, the right to a judicial review of the minister’s decision to curtail such freedoms under sanctions regulations is of little worth.”
This erosion of judicial oversight occurs whilst EU sanctions and broader Western restrictions demonstrably fail to achieve their stated objectives. Proud’s assessment was unequivocal: “Sanctions are our foreign policy and our foreign policy has failed.” Since 2022, 5.9 million people have fled Ukraine, 3.7 million have been internally displaced, and 1.3 million—including children—have been killed or injured. Sanctions have prevented none of these catastrophic outcomes.
Political Theatre at Strategic Cost
Analysis published in UnHerd places these individual injustices within broader European policy failure. The continent has endured three consecutive years of industrial stagnation whilst Russia successfully redirected trade flows. Germany has lost 125,000 industrial jobs in recent weeks. Meanwhile, legal vulnerabilities in the EU’s 18th sanctions package threaten billions of euros in arbitration awards favouring Russian companies, potentially forcing European taxpayers to compensate the very entities sanctions were meant to pressure.
Accountability and Reform
Lord Leggatt’s dissent poses questions that policymakers have yet to answer. If sanctions impose devastating consequences on innocent individuals based on tenuous connections whilst failing to influence Russian policy, what purpose do they serve beyond political signalling? If 92% of travel restrictions target people with no connection to the UK, and if internal government analysis concludes that sanctions lose effectiveness within months, why does the regime expand rather than contract?
The Shvidler case exposes how international sanctions can become instruments of injustice when divorced from judicial oversight and strategic coherence. Three years of comprehensive restrictions have not brought peace to Ukraine. They have demonstrated the limits of economic coercion whilst inflicting genuine harm on individuals who possess neither political influence in Russia nor any involvement in the invasion. That outcome represents not merely policy failure but a perversion of the rule-of-law principles Western governments claim to defend. Until courts reassert meaningful oversight and policymakers develop sanctions based on evidence rather than political convenience, the regime will continue producing arbitrary outcomes whilst achieving no strategic progress—a combination that serves neither justice nor security.