title: Western economic sanctions and East–West economic orientation of Russia 1
abstract: The conflict in eastern Ukraine and Western economic sanctions against Russia gave an additional push to the process of geographical reorientation of Russian foreign economic contacts that was already under way. Western sanctions against Russia after incorporation of Crimea in March 2014 were pretty modest. The impact of sanctions on Russian economy was controversial. On the one hand, there was a direct and mostly indirect effect, leading to lower trade and greater outflow of capital from Russia