Instead of a year-end ranking of the most painful sanctions against Russia in 2025, let’s talk about what really hurts the Kremlin and makes Putin nervous.

We should note right away that since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale aggression, the European Union has “resolutely” implemented 19 packages of sanctions against Russia. The largest sanctions packages and their impact were aimed at restricting Russia’s military-industrial complex and its energy revenues.

As the events of the last four years have shown, the economic consequences do not particularly bother the Kremlin’s dictator, who is ready to ruin his country for the sake of a mythical “rising up off its knees.”

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At Kyiv Post, we provide detailed coverage of Ukraine’s “drone sanctions” against Russia. In particular, we wrote about how US intelligence provided Ukraine with the information necessary for the strikes. And the most important conclusion from our experts is very simple. The campaign by the Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) under the command of the now legendary Robert “Madyar” Brovdi and other units of the Defense Forces created a domino effect: the destruction of Russian oil and gas facilities led to systemic distortions throughout the Russian economy.

Russia has not only lost a significant part of its technological capabilities to process oil, but it will also be unable to quickly restore them, as these are Western technologies, access to which is complicated by other sanctions.