Sanctions Policy of the European Union against Russia. Reasons and Results of Russia's Economic and Political Turn to the East

In 2014, the Russian Federation incorporated the Crimean Peninsula to its territory, which became the reason for the beginning of the EU sanctions policy. In 2022, Russia started a Special Military Operation in Ukraine to protect its national interests, which influenced the intensification of the sanctions policy. There is a view that these events were the reason for "Russia's Turn to the East", but the relations between Russia and the countries of the East have a long and long history. Thesis on the topic: "The EU sanctions policy against Russia. Causes and results of Russia's economic and political turn to the East" consists of 5 parts: introduction, three main parts, which are divided into a chapter on the EU sanctions policy, a chapter that analyzes the development of relations between Russia and Asian countries and the final chapter, which on the basis of empirical research and values of trade turnover analyzes how the sanctions policy has affected the development of relations between Russia and Eastern countries. The final chapter of my thesis is the conclusion, which summarizes and answers the research question. The thesis is a comprehensive analysis of the economic and political restrictions of the EU against Russia, an analysis of the relationship between Russia and Eastern countries and an analysis of statistics on trade turnover between Russia, the EU and Eastern countries. The data obtained during the study was analyzed in order to have a full understanding of how the EU sanctions policy against Russia developed. It was also studied the pace of Russia's development in the East. In the final part of my paper all the data collected was analyzed to prove that the sanctions policy had an impact on increasing the rate of development of Russia and Eastern countries, however, the restrictions imposed by the European Union were not the key factor in intensifying the development of relations between Russia and Asian countries. As a result, a full understanding of how the sanctions policy has influenced the development of relations between Russia and Asian countries was obtained. This helped to answer the research question and to conclude that sanctions were not the root cause of the beginning of close cooperation between Russia and the Eastern countries.