In the ten days since President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia has surpassed Iran and North Korea to become the world’s most sanctioned country.

According to Castellum.ai, a worldwide sanctions-tracking database, Russia was the target of 2,778 fresh sanctions designations starting Feb. 22 as part of a flurry of action led by the US and European partners. Over the course of a decade, Iran has faced 3,616 sanctions, the majority of which have been imposed because of its nuclear program and support for terrorism.

Every day, the pressure on Russia has risen. American Express Co. and Netflix Inc. joined the increasing list of firms pulling out of or suspending operations in Russia over the weekend. Some are doing so to avoid sanctions responsibilities, while others are “self-sanctioning,” or electing to leave even if they aren’t legally obligated to.

“This is financial nuclear war and the largest sanctions event in history,” noted Peter Piatetsky, co-founder of Castellum.ai and a former Treasury Department official in both the Obama and Trump administrations. “In less than two weeks, Russia went from being a part of the global economy to the single largest target of global sanctions and a financial pariah.”

The penalties on Russia highlight the unusual unity that the US and its allies have shown in the face of Putin’s invasion, as well as their determination to use their economic strength to try to stop him. It also underscores those countries’ reluctance to risk their forces in Ukraine, a non-NATO ally.

The flurry of penalties, Putin claimed over the weekend, is “akin to a declaration of war.”

The Exodus From Russia Has Become a Rout, From Netflix to Samsung

Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Myanmar, and Cuba are the countries with the most sanctions after Russia and Iran. Individuals, corporations, and even yachts and airplanes are all subject to the sanctions.

Before the Ukraine war, much of the US sanctions against Russia were for intervening in the 2016 election and persecuting political dissidents in Russia and abroad.

Since Feb. 22, the great majority of sanctions against Russia have been directed at individuals (2,427, according to Castellum.ai), with only 343 directed at entities, which are mainly enterprises or government bodies.

Switzerland is the country with the most sanctions against Russia, with 568, compared to 518 for the European Union and 512 for France. The United States has levied 243 sanctions.

That data also supports one of the most surprising aspects of the sanctions regimes thus far: that European nations, which have traditionally been hesitant of applying sanctions, have led the way, even surpassing the United States in several circumstances. One example, according to senior sources, was the decision to exclude some Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system, a move that the US first resisted.

Given that Putin has so far been unfazed, there will very certainly be more to come. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the US and its allies are looking “at the prospect of banning the import of Russian oil in a coordinated way, while making sure that there is still an appropriate supply of oil on world markets.”

“It’s certainly the most historically significant sanctions campaign,” said Edward Fishman, who helped run the State Department’s sanctions office in the Obama administration. “With each new escalation in Moscow’s aggressive behavior you’ve had more and more people come to realize it’s going to be challenging to have productive relations with Russia so long as Putin is in power.”

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