Timeline of EU sanctions

The first set of EU sanctions (‘restrictive measures’) against Russia were adopted in March 2014, following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, and its support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. These signalled the start of a major review of EU policy towards Russia. Russia’s behaviour during the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war had previously been condemned in statements and resolutions, but did not trigger sanctions, despite Georgia’s request for ‘smart sanctions’.
Russia’s illegal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine was immediately met with a new set of EU sanctions, meant to be unprecedented in scale and nature, and coordinated with global partners. In what has been labelled a ‘sanctions revolution’, EU Member States have adopted 11 sanctions packages in swift succession over 18 months. Each package has incrementally amended and broadened the scope of sanctions regimes adopted from 2014 onwards, with the addition (in February 2022) of a new regime banning imports of goods originating in the illegally annexed territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to the EU .