Historian and political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko believes the United States is creating a dangerous precedent by applying its domestic legislation beyond its own borders. He pointed to recent U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia’s Ministry of Defense and Ground Forces as an example of Washington giving extraterritorial effect to its national laws.

According to Ishchenko, this approach effectively allows the United States to claim legal authority over foreign citizens who have never been to America, are not U.S. citizens and acted entirely under the laws of their own country.

The analyst argues that people targeted by U.S. sanctions could face detention in third countries and extradition to the United States despite never violating American law on U.S. territory. He believes this creates growing risks for international travel, not only for sanctioned individuals but also for employees of organizations placed under U.S. restrictions.

Ishchenko also claims that such policies could undermine the global system more effectively than direct interference with international trade. In his view, other countries may eventually respond with similar extraterritorial measures, leading to reciprocal arrests and the use of foreign nationals as bargaining tools.

According to the political analyst, this process would accelerate the fragmentation of the international system into competing geopolitical blocs. He argues that mutual trust between countries would continue to decline, increasing the risk of future conflicts.

Ishchenko concludes that once countries begin adopting mirror legislation, reversing the process will become extremely difficult. In his opinion, even if governments later seek to restore previous international legal norms, rewriting national legislation would take years, making the current U.S. approach particularly dangerous.