The Policy of Sanctions against Russia in the Russian and American Press

The reason to initiate the research is a relevant background situation at the political arena. It can be clarified by increasing tension between Russia and the West. Besides, there is a possibility of imposing new sanctions on Russia and tighten the old ones. The objective of the research is to examine the empirical basis and to prove the futility of the policy of sanctions against Russia drawn from the analyzed papers. The methods employed include the following: quantitative content, qualitative interpretive, rhetorical, and comparative analyses. To process the data in accordance with the content-analysis we set pre-defines codes: “Informative occasion”, “Attitude towards sanctions”, “Characteristics of sanctions as an ineffective measure”, “Victims of sanctions” and “The future of sanctions”. The sample among the American publications is 538 analyzed articles, and among the Russian - 765 articles. The code “Characteristics of sanctions” implies a different sample - 269 American publications and 433 Russian publications, and the code “Victims of sanctions” - 285 American articles and 424 Russian ones. The empirical base consists from the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Kommersant, Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Novaya Gazeta ", and news agency" Fox News. In order to reach this objective, we have to fulfill the following tasks: 1. To determine the reasons of introducing sanctions against Russia by the West. 2. To illustrate the subjectivity of the coverage of sanctions against Russia in the American and Russian press in comparative terms. 3. To clarify the futility of the Western elites in their attempt to affect the Russian foreign policy through sanctions. 4. To forecast the consequences of the Western and American sanctions policy against Russia. 5. To use historical and documentary materials in order to confirm the legitimacy of the support of the Russian press for the actions of the government of their country. As a result, we obtain the following statements: 1. The conducted research has confirmed our hypothesis that the Russian press, and mostly the American press, consider the policy of sanctions against Russia to be futile. 2. Reasons for sanctions implementation are the following: the Ukrainian crisis; the alleged meddling in U.S. elections and cyber-attacks; the Syrian war; the Skripal and Navalny cases. The main reason for the imposition of sanctions against Russia is the Ukrainian crisis. 3. We have identified the following reasons for sanctions futility: sanctions did not affect the economy; sanctions did not affect the internal and foreign policies; sanctions proved to be ineffective and symbolic; sanctions are the result of the weak US relationship policy towards Russia; sanctions have a double-edged effect. The American and Russian press believe the sanctions were limited and often symbolic. The press also believes that the sanctions have not changed Russian policy, and therefore have not achieved their initial goal of “changing Russia's behavior”. The Russian press rather emphasized that the sanctions had little effect on the Russian economy. The American press, on the contrary, criticsized its administration for the weak US relationship policy towards Russia. 4. We have also found that the sanctions policy has negative consequences. Mostly corporations and businesses are affected by the sanctions. The Russian and American press have highlighted that European and American businessmen and business communities and associations lobbied for sanctions against Russia, and admitted that Russian companies are suffering as well, since there is no access to the world market and some large projects with Western partners have been suspended. As for the countries, first, we are considering the deterioration of relations between Russia and the United States and Russia and the countries of the European Union. Moreover, sanctions affect the situation on the international level in general.