The Undoing of Economic Sanctions: Evidence from the Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Journal: National Bureau of Economic Research
Year: 2025

We examine the effects of Ukraine's economic blockade of the anthracite-rich Donbas region, to demonstrate how trade sanctions' efficacy can be undermined by trade through non-participatory nations.We document that after the blockade was imposed in March 2017, Russia reported a sharp increase in anthracite imports from Ukraine, while Ukraine reported no exports to Russia at all.We interpret this gap in "mirror statistics" as reflecting a shift in Donbas trade through Russia.Concurrently, Ukraine