British diplomat Ian Proud argues that anti-Russia sanctions have failed and that Europe has no peace plan for Ukraine
Glenn Diesen interviews Ian Proud, a British diplomat who served from 1999 to 2023, including as economic counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from 2014 to 2019, where he oversaw UK sanctions against Russia.
Summary
Ian Proud argues that Western sanctions against Russia have comprehensively failed their stated purpose of compelling Russia to change its behaviour in Ukraine, and that since approximately 2017 the sanctions have arguably hurt Europe and the UK more than Russia. He contends that European leaders have no genuine peace plan — their foreign policy goal is the defeat of Russia, which means diplomacy is structurally excluded rather than merely neglected. Proud draws on his direct experience overseeing sanctions implementation to argue that Russia's macroeconomic management has been far more stable and competent than that of European states, giving it resilience that Western policymakers consistently underestimate. He predicts the war will continue into the following year before Europe runs out of both the economic means and the political legitimacy to sustain it, at which point Europe — not Russia — will be forced to seek a settlement. On the longer-term question of European security architecture, Proud argues that people-to-people connections across borders are a more durable foundation for peace than any formal security framework.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Sanctions Against Russia: Purpose and Effectiveness
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. We have the great privilege of being joined today by Ian Proud, a British diplomat between 1999 and 2023. Part of his roles included serving as economic counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow between 2014 and 2019, where part of his responsibility was overseeing British sanctions against Russia. Thank you for coming back on the program. I thought a good place to start would be the sanctions. As we see now, the European Union is working very hard to push through the 21st sanctions package, which has met some opposition within the EU. How do you assess the sanctions against Russia in terms of purpose and effectiveness?
Ian Proud: In terms of purpose, the UK and European sanctions, which started from the same place in 2014, had the same stated purpose: to get Russia to stop its activities in Ukraine. However you describe those activities, for the Europeans and the British that means to end the war and, one presumes, to withdraw from Ukraine. But sanctions have been in place for 12 years, and if that is the purpose, you have to ask whether it has succeeded — and clearly it hasn't, 12 years down the track. Another way to address that purpose would actually be to talk to Russia itself. What I've said often is that sanctions have become a replacement for dialogue. Because we don't want to have diplomatic negotiations with Russia, we don't want to talk to Russia, therefore we have sanctions. But unfortunately, sanctions are not fulfilling their purpose because the war continues and we're still not talking to Russia. So they haven't been effective in terms of the strategic purpose.
In terms of the actual economic effectiveness of sanctions, you'd have to say that economically, sanctions really since about 2017 have arguably been hurting Europe and the UK more than they've been hurting Russia.
Why Europe Keeps Doubling Down
Glenn Diesen: How do we explain the continuity here? This is the 21st package. It begs the question after a while — what is the point? If they really had something good to sanction, surely they would have done it the first 20 times. Is it the lack of other instruments? Is it the unwillingness to talk to the opponent? Why just double down over and over again?
Ian Proud: Albert Einstein was misquoted as saying the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I think the truth is that European and British policymakers don't have an idea of how to address this problem. They don't want to talk to Russia, they don't want to fight a war with Russia, and so therefore all that leaves them with is sanctions — and even though sanctions are not effective, at least that's better than talking to Russia. The whole thing becomes very circular very quickly.
Clearly it isn't working, but nevertheless the bureaucratic inertia within the system just insists on repeating the cycle over and over again even though it's making no difference. I know that seems completely illogical, and of course it is illogical, but it really boils down to a complete lack of ideas in the West about how to end the war. And of course, the longer the war goes on, the harder it is for them to end it, because when the war ends their efforts will have been seen to have failed.
You said the 21st package of sanctions — in fact, that's only the 21st package since the war started in 2022. There have been many, many more packages of sanctions dating right back to 2014. And at no point has it ever really looked likely that they would actually persuade Russia to back down from what it considers to be its core strategic interest in Ukraine.
The Breakdown of European Diplomacy
Glenn Diesen: A key problem here then is the unwillingness to talk to Russia. This is a complete breakdown in diplomacy, because there's plenty of evidence suggesting that even if the two sides just have basic talks, it would improve the ability to pursue peace — you would get a greater understanding of what your opponent wants, its security concerns, the possibilities for compromise. It also creates more realistic expectations and humanises your opponent. How can it be that after four and a half years, European leaders still boycott diplomacy? At least under Trump, the Americans started to talk to Russia. Of course it's not leading anywhere, but talking to the opponent seems like a minimum, especially when you're in a war — or proxy war, or direct war, wherever we may be now — against the world's largest nuclear power. The EU's own position has always been that if there's a conflict, the first step is at least to open dialogue. So how can you explain this — 27 member states, none of whose leaders want to talk to the opponent?
Ian Proud: To answer that question, the best answer is to think about foreign policy itself. Foreign policy is not the same as diplomacy. Diplomacy is the tool that you use to advance your foreign policy. Now, whenever you hear European leaders, their foreign policy is to defeat Russia. And actually, even though there's no real evidence that Ukraine can win the war — quite the opposite — the European and British policy appears to be to maintain strategic patience and wait for Russia to crumble under the pressure of economic sanctions, which I've said don't really work, and of military battlefield losses and that sort of thing.
Well, if that is the foreign policy, then implicitly diplomacy isn't required, because diplomacy isn't part of that equation. It's only really when the foreign policy changes that you might see diplomacy. The foreign policy should be: how can we secure peace in Ukraine? That would be a rational foreign policy — what is the quickest and least harmful route for us to bring this devastating war to an end. If that were the foreign policy, then European leaders would quickly decide that they need diplomacy. But that isn't the foreign policy. Bringing peace to Ukraine is not the foreign policy, and therefore diplomacy is not required.
Strategic Patience and the Question of Victory
Glenn Diesen: The term "strategic patience" — I remember that was used by Boris Johnson back in 2022 after he had torpedoed the Istanbul peace agreement. He went out, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal, and wrote an article saying we don't need a bad peace, we need strategic patience. For me, this is a code word for a long war. A lot of the narratives which Europe has embraced appear to be aimed exactly towards that end — a long war. But to what end? What does victory look like for the Europeans? Do they want Russia destroyed? Do they want regime change in Moscow, or just a weakened Russia? Do they want a powerful Ukrainian proxy? What is the objective?
Ian Proud: Well, all of the above. Kaja Kallas has variously said that she wants to see the breakup of Russia, which is a completely fantastical kind of statement for an apparently senior European figure to make. Several European leaders, including Alexander Stubb, have said that they want to see Russia weakened. Several European leaders have said that this can't really end until Putin goes and his regime is overthrown. So look across the piece and you'll see all of these things.
But the question then comes back to: is that likely? Is it realistic to expect that Russia is going to break into separate parts — the world's largest nuclear superpower? I've lived in Russia for four and a half years, and it is an incredibly complex and diverse country in a way that most people who've never been to Russia don't really understand. But it's also very, very unified, and that sense of external threat is very strong. Therefore, much to the surprise of many in Europe, Putin remains remarkably popular compared to European leaders. That doesn't mean there isn't domestic political pressure in Russia — of course there is, of course the war is taking its toll — but regime change has never really looked likely. And the breakup of the country just appears completely absurd.
When it comes to weakening Russia economically, Russia has performed better despite thousands and thousands of sanctions. Economically, Russia has found itself in a much more resilient place than the rest of Europe and Britain, essentially from 12 years of having navigated the complex geoeconomic movements that have taken place — not just because of sanctions, but because of oil price movements, because of COVID. People don't understand that Russia has a very competent macroeconomic policy team — a really powerful central bank governor and finance minister who've been in their jobs since 2014. People think that Russia is run by people who don't know how to manage the economy. Actually, in the UK and European countries we see ministers come and go. I did a calculation that since the Ukraine crisis started, Germany, France, and Britain had had 23 different finance ministers. Russia has had one. Russia has had a remarkable amount of policy clarity, and that has given it economic resilience which you simply don't have in Europe or in the United Kingdom.
And briefly on the strategic patience point — every European state is governed by electoral cycles. Even Boris Johnson, who fell from power less than four months after he made that statement, illustrates this. Our leaders change so often that the idea of strategic patience is a fallacy anyway, because voters want different things, ministers come and go, and the idea that some core thread of strategy is going to survive the constant change is clearly a ridiculous idea.
The Obsession with Regime Change in Moscow
Glenn Diesen: The common theme in what you're saying is this hope for regime change in Moscow. Back in 2022, after the US and UK again sabotaged the Istanbul agreement, you saw a lot of comments coming out suggesting that the only acceptable outcome would be regime change in Moscow. Why the obsession with having Putin go away? Is it the assumption that Russia would be weaker, more divided, more vulnerable without Putin? Or is it that Putin goes away and we get another pro-Western Yeltsin type — someone committed to unilateral concessions due to an undying desire to be part of the political West?
Ian Proud: At one level, the whole thing has become very personalised, as it has through history. Putin is the Goliath and Zelensky is the David figure. We need to have a hero and we need to have a villain, and right now Putin is that villain. But it's absolutely not clear that if somebody replaced Putin we would like them any more, and in any case we can't even control who might replace Putin should he go. The greater chances are that actually somebody the West liked even less would come to power.
So the question is really: why do we insist on pushing this? The CIA and MI6 have a history of regime change going back to the end of the Second World War, and it didn't really work in small, underdeveloped Latin American states and Central European states in terms of a durable political settlement. How do they possibly expect it to work in Russia — a very complex, very large, economically prosperous, militarily powerful nation? It's clearly a ridiculous concept and people should give up on it.
What people really should be thinking about is how we can see through our underlying distrust, which has obviously grown over the past 12 years, and find a way to coexist — not necessarily to be friends, but to coexist peacefully in a way that doesn't harm our interests, Russia's interests, or Ukraine's interests. Nobody is really doing that thinking in the West. We're locked into this deluded belief that we can somehow defeat Russia, and if we just wait a bit longer, if we just give Zelensky a few more billion dollars, if we just send more Ukrainian men back from Europe to fight, if we just don't let the constant scandals around Zelensky distract us from the real enemy, then eventually things will be okay. I just don't think they will be okay. Ukraine can't win this war. Ukraine is being turned into a depopulated failed state because of a war that we've encouraged them to keep fighting, and it really is disgraceful that we've done that.
Europe's Absence of a Peace Plan
Glenn Diesen: What is the peace plan of the Europeans? Because sanctions are typically assessed by their ability to create pain for the purpose of changing economic behaviour. But one gets the impression that the sanctions are merely economic coercion — the goal is simply to weaken Russia. They talk about weakening Putin's war machine. So how they measure effectiveness is essentially to weaken Russia. But what is the pathway to peace?
Ian Proud: There is no pathway to peace. European leaders have spoken about possibly having dialogue with Russia over the past eight months or so — really since the end of last year, when Belgium blocked the theft of immobilised Russian assets held at Euroclear. There's been some talk, but that's never really got off the ground. European leaders are fundamentally resistant to the idea of dialogue, and therefore peace is not in their plan. Defeat is in their plan, not peace. So there is no plan, Glenn. I wish there was, but there isn't. Nobody's talking about peace, and therefore nobody needs to talk to Russia to deliver peace.
On the sanctions — I've looked at this a lot because I did a lot of work on them — they are having practically no impact at all on Russia, other than to harden Russia's position that sanctions are intended to weaken it, and therefore any concession on Russia's part would be a weakness it can't tolerate. Russia needs to keep prosecuting the war in Ukraine until such time as European leaders are ready to talk and actually have a peace plan.
Right now, we still seem a very long way from the point where European leaders are ready to recognise that reality. Whenever they send weapons or push more sanctions, the argument always has to be framed in the language of defeating Russia, but it always has to be dressed up in peaceful language too. So it's always framed as pressuring Russia to the negotiation table. But that seems like a very fraudulent argument, because Russia is willing to talk to the Europeans. They want to discuss the European security architecture — or the lack thereof — which triggered this war. It's the Europeans who don't come to the negotiation table. It's a very strange argument to make.
How the War Ends
Glenn Diesen: How do you see this war ending? There are a hundred different variables, but what direction are we taking?
Ian Proud: The big variable is Putin's resilience to taking steps that would massively escalate on the NATO side — in terms of striking NATO. I've never personally thought that is something he would like to do, because I think long-term he does hope there'll be some sort of normalisation, however that's described, with Europe. But I do see considerable scope for escalation in the short term, given these deeper and deeper strikes that not only Ukraine is undertaking but that the West is encouraging Ukraine to undertake and giving them the capabilities to do so.
So right now there's an escalation risk, and I think for now escalation will happen within Ukraine itself, because there are still several steps up the escalation ladder. That assumes some sort of worsening conflict through to the winter, when — assuming that Zelensky wants to keep fighting, and all the indications are that he does, because he won't have a job when the war ends — Kyiv will be plunged into darkness, they'll have no heating, and the same but worse conditions will apply. Russia will return to a strategic bombardment of Ukrainian cities, and everybody will say how terrible Russia is and therefore we need to give Ukraine more money. The war will carry on.
So I think the war will go on until next year. I've said that for several months now. But I think ultimately Europe will run out of the economic means and political legitimacy to carry it on much further, as voters increasingly say this is manifestly hurting us and our interests more than it's hurting Russia, and vote out people like Macron in France in 2029 and so on in Germany. Europe will run out of the money and the political legitimacy to carry this on without some sort of pushback from European citizens.
So I think Europe will have to fold. We'll have to make a settlement, but that's going to be very painful because they've said all along that they would win and they haven't won. It's going to be very messy politically in Europe because they will have failed and everybody will see that they failed. Ukrainians will feel hurt and let down by this process. The Russians will reach out with an olive branch, and it's not really clear that the Europeans will want to take it — but they should. So it's going to be very complex and very messy in Europe, but I think ultimately Europe will fold before Russia will fold. That's really the position I've taken right from the start.
Ukraine's Internal Crisis and Zelensky's Position
Glenn Diesen: Who may fall before the European states — because Ukraine is also becoming quite exhausted. It has its economic problems, growing societal divisions, and is struggling militarily on the front lines with manpower and equipment. We have a political crisis now. What do you make of the Syrsky-Zelensky split? Is someone going to topple Zelensky at some point? He's not very popular at the moment either.
Ian Proud: He's not, but he's got that thing where he's more popular in European capitals than he is in his own country. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian state has become increasingly repressive of its own citizens. It's become a very elderly population now — many of the young people have already left. The people that are left include some quite extremist elements, so the scope to repress the remaining population is still quite high.
I personally think there may be some sort of internal move to remove Zelensky at some point — some sort of palace coup or something like that. But he's going to fight tooth and nail to stay in power and become ever more repressive. Western media won't call him out on it. Even today on the BBC there was a scandalous report about forcible conscription which started off with a tale of woe about a recruitment officer who'd been beaten up by somebody he was trying to conscript. The reporting of Ukrainian oppression is so distorted in the West now that Western leaders are going to keep supporting Zelensky come what may.
So yes, there could be a palace coup. I think if there's no Zelensky there's no war, because anybody who replaced him would see common sense and say it's time to end this. But Zelensky is not going to go without a fight.
Glenn Diesen: It's interesting — what they first deny, they move on to justify. The forcible conscription was first called Russian propaganda, and then it shifted to "well, that's what you have to do to win the war." It's a bit like the heavy presence of fascist elements — first it was all Russian propaganda, then we had the Polish pushback, and now it can't be denied, so instead it's shifting into "well, who's to say the difference between fascists and freedom fighters." The whitewashing is now in place.
Given that a key component of what provoked this war has been the collapse of the pan-European security architecture — that is, the expansion of NATO, which we used to recognise for years and years as something Russia looked upon very unfavourably, even as an existential threat — how do you see the future for NATO?
NATO, the EU, and the Future of European Security
Ian Proud: I regard NATO like I regard the EU institutions — as fundamentally a bureaucratic entity that takes sovereignty from its member states and that ultimately has an internal bureaucratic life force and a need to exist and a need to gain power, exactly like the European institutions. The problem in Europe is that people don't think about NATO in the same way as they think about the EU. Lots of people in Europe, including here in the UK, in France, in places like Switzerland which is outside the EU, see the EU institutions as fundamentally anti-democratic — which I believe they are, because they've gained too many powers. But people don't see NATO in the same way. I see it in exactly the same way.
I see no scenario in which NATO will cease to exist. It has too much convening power. The Americans are too invested in it and make too much money out of it. Even if they're turning their gaze towards the Asia-Pacific, I think NATO will weaken in its powers over time, particularly if the whole Ukraine misadventure proves to be a catastrophic failure. That will weaken NATO, but I don't necessarily see it going away. I see both the EU institutions and NATO as going through some period of managed decline rather than ultimate collapse.
What I do think will happen more is that you'll see greater strategic military collaboration between the main military powers in Europe — by which I mean Britain, Germany, France, and Russia. If there's to be some sort of military understanding across the great military powers in Europe, then dialogue between those four main powers has to take place. I don't include Ukraine in that, even though objectively Ukraine has a bigger army than the UK — but we're paying for that. It's not like a normal military power. It's almost like a battery chicken that's been given steroids and has grown to double its full size in the space of two days. You wouldn't call Ukraine a great military power. It doesn't have the economic-industrial base, doesn't have the population density, and its army is an army of conscripts.
So I think really the four main military powers need to coalesce and have some format of dialogue outside of the NATO umbrella to regulate security as a starting point, and maybe that can lead to some bigger understanding, some bigger agreement on pan-European and pan-Asian security in the future. I hope that it does.
The Possibility of a New European Security Architecture
Glenn Diesen: As a last question, and in a desperate effort to finish on a positive note — do you see any possibility, if this war comes to an end or as a diplomatic effort to end the war, that we might actually have discussions and even development of a new European security architecture? Keeping in mind that in the early 1990s this is what we were discussing — how to have an inclusive European security architecture based on indivisible security. We went with NATO expansion instead, for a hegemonic peace. Now we see the US reducing its interest in Europe, NATO seeming to have outlived its glory days, and the whole "out of area or out of business" purpose appearing to have lost some of its legitimacy. Do you see the possibility of taking a few steps back — well, three decades back — and starting to look at how to overcome bloc politics, how to pursue indivisible security? From your experience with British diplomats and the Europeans, do you see an appetite for that sort of thing?
Ian Proud: My view is that it's a bit of a myth that NATO ultimately delivered European security after World War II. Of course it did during the Cold War, but I think the thing that really changed the dial was the opening up of borders between European nations. And I don't necessarily mean free movement and those sorts of things — I mean at a social, cultural, and economic level, people coming together. I think actually when you put that before the politics and the security, it's much easier to form some sort of common understanding, some common feeling of community with a small 'c', with your neighbouring states.
I think the same should be true of our relationship with Russia. All the time that Europe was actually modernising and growing economically, there was a period of time — in slightly offset timings — when Russia was doing the same. Russian citizens want the same things that European citizens want. I think what you really need to start with is the opening up of people-to-people links and connections, because that is the best guarantor of peace. That whole agenda is far more powerful in terms of bringing people together than any formal architecture.
Of course, in terms of the architecture — a common security framework — okay, that's fine. But if you don't have people trying to meet each other, understand each other, move between countries, and have open relationships including economic and cultural relationships, all the other stuff is always going to be loaded with baggage that you can never really get past. I'm very much a proponent of the opening up of relationships between nations so that we can actually understand Russian people and have them understand us better through closer links.
If you can start getting back to that when the war ends — having normal, open borders so that we're not demonising Russian people if they come to the EU — that would be a really good place to start. But of course, on the bigger picture, a common security framework would be good too. I think ultimately what's going to change the dial is people meeting people and realising that we all want the same things.
Glenn Diesen: Well, on that semi-positive note, thank you very much for taking the time, Ian, and have a great summer.
Ian Proud: Cheers, and all the best. Enjoy your holidays.