Anti-Russian Sanctions and Threats for the Subjects of the Russian Federation

In March 2014, the US and the EU announced trade and financial sanctions against Russia and a travel ban on some individuals. Although none of the competent international bodies approved or endorsed these sanctions, several other countries—mostly NATO members and allies of the USA—joined them later. Sanctions are imposed by a state or a group of states, so they must also be opposed by a state. Moreover, the state applying sanctions is usually stronger than the one withstanding them. Sanctions are a weapon. Therefore, it is necessary not only to defend oneself from them, but also to deprive those who impose them the ability and desire to fight. For this purpose, it is required at least to protect one’s weak points (it is even better not to have them) and increase the power. Basing on the 2011–2012 official statistics and using his own technique, the author has calculated the levels of economic protectability from sanctions for each of 82 subjects of the Russian Federation. Depending on these levels, the regions have been assigned to one of four groups of protectability: good, acceptable, questionable and weak. It turned out that judging by the selected set of indicators, a half of the subjects of the Russian Federation are of low sensitivity to sanctions: their level of protectability is either good or acceptable. The author suggests measures to improve the protectability of Russian regions from the sanctions imposed on the country