The analysis of the effects of sanctions against Russia on Russian economy

The thesis overviewed the cause and impact of sanctions implemented against Russia. More specifically, the author explained in detail the history of the Russian-Ukrainian relation, examined the events that resulted in the implementation of sanctions. Also, the thesis explained the sanctions implemented by the U.S.A and European countries, their mechanism and target.The impact on different sectors such as: economy and energy were discussed as well. The higher focus was on the financial sector, since the sanctions targeted this sector more heavily. For better understanding, author gives a comparison of sanctions implemented by different Western countries.The hypothesis of this thesis is that sanctions did not cause the economic problems that Russia faced in recent years, but just aggravated the structural complications that Russia already had after the Global Crisis. To test the hypothesis, author used a study which is trying to demonstrate if the sanctions itself resulted in the economic slowdown that Russian economy faced in the past years and also author did an analysis comparing economy of Russia and Kazakhstan, taken in 2008-2019 time period. The decision to make an analysis was made for better depiction of the main hypothesis tested in the paper used in practical part. The result is that structural problems and economic slowdown were already in place even before the sanctions were introduced, and that the main variables responsible for this are interest rates and oil prices. The result is in accordance with the study used in practical part (Kholodilin, K. A., & Netšunajev, A. (2018).