Thousands of far-reaching sanctions have been imposed by dozens of countries on Russian banks, businesses and people since Moscow ordered tanks to roll across the border into Ukraine in the winter of 2022.
Now, more than 1,000 days later, as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office, questions about the sanctions’ effectiveness — and future — are expected to come under renewed scrutiny.
Mr. Trump has stated, “I want to use sanctions as little as possible.” And he has made clear that there will be a shift in American policy toward Ukraine, having promised to end the war in a single day.
Experts believe that sanctions and continued military aid are almost certain to be bargaining chips in any negotiations.
So how valuable are the sanction chips that Mr. Trump will hold?
The answer is hotly debated.
Predictions in the early months of the war that economic restrictions would soon undermine President Vladimir V. Putin’s regime or reduce the ruble to “rubble” did not pan out. Mr. Putin remains entrenched in the Kremlin, and his forces are inflicting punishing damage on Ukraine and gaining on the battlefield.
Yet the idea that economic sanctions could bring a quick end to the war was always more a product of hope than a realistic assessment, said Sergei Guriev, a Russian economist who fled the country in 2013 and is now the dean of the London Business School.
