It's extremely important that we have a strong sanctions regime. I think, quite frankly, over the past 15 months, during Russia's barbaric invasion of Ukraine, that Canada has demonstrated international leadership in terms of sanctions and applying those sanctions on members of the Putin regime and, more broadly, on the Russian government.
I believe—and I think a lot of other experts believe—the sanctions have been effective. They've certainly deterred, as far as sanctions on the export of dual-use technologies and such are concerned. They have hampered Vladimir Putin's ability to repair the weapons that have been damaged over the course of this war and to upgrade and build new weapons. This has certainly given Ukraine an upper hand over the past 15 months.
As far as deterrence is concerned, I think we're seeing the effects of the sanctions. We're seeing cracks appearing inside the Kremlin. There have been numerous reports of oligarchs who are close to Vladimir Putin questioning the logic and his decision to go to war and invade Ukraine.
I think sanctions were seen at the beginning of the conflict as some sort of a silver bullet that might stop the conflict, but they're not. They're a form a medicine. We need to sustain these sanctions. We need to continue applying them, because it's a strong form of pressure and, like I said, the pressure is showing in certain areas and certain parts of the Kremlin.
Like I said, we see some of these cracks appearing, so we need to keep the pressure up, work with our allies, further coordinate those sanctions and make sure that the loopholes that exist within our sanctions regime are closed. With the ones I mentioned in my opening remarks, specifically with regard to Russian state media, for example, we need to make sure those loopholes are closed.