I don't understand why these sanctions on Russia weren't imposed 3 years ago

[muriel_volestrangler]

There would have been a case for imposing sanctions like this in 2014, but the pretence then was that it was not an official Russian invasion of Crimea, so formal sanctions weren't looked at. But this is the kind of stuff I thought we'd already applied:

The UK and Europe have announced major sanctions against Russia as it became clear that Monday’s call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had failed to deliver any meaningful concessions from Moscow.
...
The UK said its sanctions would target dozens of entities “supporting Russia’s military machine, energy exports and information war, as well as financial institutions helping to fund Putin’s invasion of Ukraine”.
...
Shortly afterwards the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the EU had approved sanctions targeting Russia’s shadow fleet of about 200 vessels and that more sanctions were in the pipeline. “The longer Russia wages war, the tougher our response,” she said.

Western countries imposed an embargo on Russia’s oil industry after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and banned services for ships transporting Russian crude. In response, Moscow began relying on a so-called shadow fleet - tankers with murky ownership and often without proper insurance - to continue exports
...
Trump had indicated on Monday following his call with Putin that the US was not ready to join European sanctions efforts.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/20/sanctions-russia-uk-europe-putin-trump-call

When they talked about extra sanctions, I thought that meant going after 3rd party countries that were still trading with Russia (eg China and India), not "tankers with murky ownership and often without proper insurance" - those should have been sanctioned for 3 years.

[Nictuku]

1. I think that 'Enforcement' of these Sanctions is also VERY Lacking

[House of Roberts]

2. In 2014 they had a Putin puppet in charge.

We weren't being asked for help at the time.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. he was in charge at the start of 2014, but they chucked him out before Russia took Crimea

On 21 February, President Yanukovych signed an agreement with opposition leaders. It promised constitutional changes to restore certain powers to parliament and called for early elections to be held by December.[40] Despite the agreement, thousands continued to protest in central Kyiv, and the security forces withdrew, leaving demonstrators in control of the city's government district: the parliament building, the president's administration quarters, the cabinet, and the Interior Ministry.[77][78] The evening, Yanukovych secretly fled the capital, without informing parliament of his whereabouts.[79]

On 22 February, parliament voted 328–0 in favour of removing Yanukovych from office and scheduled new presidential elections for 25 May.[80] Parliament named its chairman, Oleksandr Turchynov, as interim president.[3] An arrest warrant for Yanukovych was issued by the new government on 24 February.[81] Over the next few days, Russian nationalist politicians and activists organised rallies in Crimea and urged the Russian government to help defend the region from advancing "fascists" from the rest of Ukraine.[82]
...
While Russian propaganda characterizes Euromaidan as a coup, the actual military coup was performed by Russia in Ukrainian Crimea on the 27th February 2014, when Russian military seized Crimean parliament and government buildings and replaced Ukrainian elected officials with Russian-controlled figures.[42][294][44]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

The war in Donbas,[c] or the Donbas war, was a phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The war began in April 2014, when Russian paramilitaries seized several towns.[20][21][6][22] Ukraine's military launched an operation against them, but failed to fully retake the territory.[23][5] Covertly, Russia's military were directly involved, and the separatists were largely under Russian control. The war continued until subsumed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.[24]
...
On 17 July 2014, DPR forces shot down a civilian passenger jet, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Hrabove (a village in the Donetsk Oblask), killing all 298 people on board. This disaster followed two similar incidents earlier in the week, when two Ukrainian Air Force planes were shot down.[253]

DPR-affiliated insurgents blamed the Ukrainian government for the disaster, whereas the government, Netherlands, and Australia blamed Russia and the insurgents.[254][255] The responsibility for investigation was delegated to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT), who concluded that the airliner was downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine.[256][257] According to the JIT, the Buk that was used originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation,[258][259] and had been transported from Russia on the day of the crash, fired from a field in a separatist-controlled area, and the launcher returned to Russia after it was used to shoot down MH17.[260][258][261]

On the basis of the JIT's conclusions, the governments of the Netherlands and Australia held Russia responsible for the deployment of the Buk installation and took steps to hold Russia formally accountable.[254][255]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas

[Frasier Balzov]

4. Maybe space missions had something to do with it.

I believe they have helped us out on more than one occasion.

As in saved our bacon.