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Russian prestigious School of Economics opens first master’s programme on circumventing Western sanctions
Russia’s prestigious Higher School of Economics (HSE) launched what it describes as the country’s first two-year master’s program dedicated to sanctions compliance, according to the university’s website.
Officially titled “International Corporate Compliance,” the program includes modules on “identifying and detecting sanctions risks,” Russian media outlet IStories reported on 15 July, citing university materials.
The move comes as Western sanctions, imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have contracted Russia’s economy—leading to a drop in GDP, loss of export revenues, and cutting the country from Western technology and finance.
The aim of the clases reportedly is to equip professionals with skills to navigate international restrictions, reflecting a strategic response to prolonged economic isolation and the need for companies to manage sanctions risks effectively.
The two-year course will focus on international corporate compliance and business ethics, and will be taught in both Russian and English.
The program costs 490,000 rubles (over $6,000) per year with no state-funded places available. Graduates will be positioned to work in state corporations and companies closely cooperating with the government.
HSE has simultaneously introduced a development course called “Sanctions Compliance.” This training teaches participants to “identify risk zones for secondary sanctions and enforcement measures by foreign and Russian regulators during transactions with Russian and foreign entities, and conduct transaction analysis for sanctions risk,” according to the reports.
Priced at 84,000 rubles ($1,049), the course includes theoretical instruction and real-world case studies and runs for 136 hours of webinars.
A third HSE professional development program focuses on working with crypto assets under sanctions conditions.
Moscow State University’s law faculty has partnered with the National Compliance Association to offer its own sanctions circumvention course for 95,000 rubles (almost $1,200).
Following Vladimir Putin’s decree, MSU is establishing a scientific-educational center for sanctions compliance.
Sanctions compliance courses reportedly were previously taught as mandatory subjects for international law department students at HSE and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
Sanctions on Russia
The extensive sanctions packages include restrictions targeting energy exports, pipeline transactions, military technologies, and financial institutions’ use of SWIFT, severely impacting Russia’s economic and military sectors. The latest Western sanctions on Russia were imposed by the European Union on July 19, 2025, marking the 18th sanctions package.
By 2025, Western sanctions have had significant effects on Russia’s economy. The sanctions have deprived Russia of at least $450 billion in war funding since February 2022, including $154 billion in lost oil tax revenues caused by discounted export prices and approximately $285 billion in frozen Central Bank foreign reserves held by EU and G7 countries. Additionally, Russia’s oil export revenues have dropped sharply, shrinking by over 25% in early 2023 compared to the previous year, with continuing downward trends through 2025.
Despite the regular introduction of new sanctions, Russia has overcome these restrictions through a combination of strategies. The country reroutes exports to non-Western partners, especially China and India, while utilizing parallel imports and a “shadow fleet” of oil tankers that operate outside official channels. Russia has also built alternative financial networks to circumvent restrictions, developed domestic substitutes for sanctioned goods, and increasingly relies on intermediary countries such as Türkiye, Kazakhstan, and the UAE for imports and financial services.
