Since President Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" in Ukraine began, Russia has been hit by sanctions with unprecedented speed – and at an unprecedented scale.

The EU, U.S., UK, Japan and Canada amongst others have all imposed strict controls or even total bans on Russian imports and exports, as well as targeting individuals they see as supporting the current conflict.

But will these sanctions work to bring peace to Ukraine? What impact are they really having on the Russian economy? And what about the wider ripple effect on the rest of the world?

In this episode of The Agenda, Stephen Cole speaks to Sanctions lawyer, Adam Smith to find out whether they are an effective tool to sway governments.

He also gets a view on the current state of the Russian economy from Sergey Aleksashenko, a Former Deputy Governor of Russia's Central Bank and former Deputy Finance Minister for the Russian Federation, and speaks to Lorenzo Codogno, Former Chief Economist at the Italian Treasury about whether the current sanctions imposed on Russia may in fact end up causing real economic problems across the rest of Europe.

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