The Russia programme is the largest coordinated sanctions effort ever attempted against a major economy, and it is the reason several techniques on this site exist in their current form.
What makes it structurally unusual
Three features distinguish it from the older comprehensive programmes.
It is coalitional. The measures are imposed in parallel by the United States, the EU, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, Switzerland and others, with substantial but incomplete alignment. The gaps between the regimes are narrower than in any previous programme and they are still the seams that matter.
It is not comprehensive. Russia is not embargoed. Enormous volumes of lawful trade continue, including energy trade under conditions. That means the detection problem is not “is there a transaction” but “is this particular transaction within the restriction”, which is a far harder question.
It introduced the price cap, an instrument that does not prohibit a trade but conditions the services it requires, and delegates verification to those service providers through attestations.
What it produced
The programme is responsible for the current prominence of third-country transshipment analysis, for the publication of high-priority commodity code lists, for the price cap attestation regime and the compliance apparatus around it, and for the sustained public attention to the tanker fleet operating outside mainstream insurance and flag arrangements.