Exclusive: David O’Sullivan says war-based economy may be nearing point of becoming ‘unsustainable’
Western sanctions are having a “significant impact” on the Russian economy, the EU’s sanctions envoy has said, ahead of the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
David O’Sullivan, a veteran Irish official, said sanctions were “not a silver bullet” and would always face circumvention, but insisted that after four years he was confident they were having an effect.
“I am fairly bullish. I think that the sanctions have really had a significant impact on the Russian economy,” he told the Guardian in a rare interview.
“We may be, in the course of 2026, coming to a point where the whole thing becomes unsustainable, because so much of the Russian economy has been distorted so much by the building up of the war economy at the expense of the civil economy. I think defying the laws of economic gravity can only go on for so long.”