Are they sanctioned away from RIPE? Russia is. Russia isn't allowed to be allocated any IP addresses they don't already have. They're Russia, so they already have a bunch, but if they didn't, they'd have to keep borrowing them on grey markets, possibly different ones each time.

(Fun fact about sanctions: the International Criminal Court is sanctioned away from Microsoft, so they can't legally get access to Windows or Office. This is because they prosecuted a war criminal the USA likes.)