Abstract: On 30 July 2020 the Council of the European Union announced the decision to impose the first ever sanctions against cyber-attacks. On the same day, the U.S. Department of State released a press statement welcoming the application of cyber sanctions by the European Union. The aim of this paper is to clarify the notion of cyber sanctions from the conceptual point of view and to explain how the EU’s cyber sanctions regime complies with the rules of public international law. Therefore, the research hypothesis of this article is as follows: international law matters in cyberspace and the cyber sanctions in their substance do not differ much from targeted sanctions, so the main difference between them is not in the content of the restrictive measures, but in the actions that trigger the response of the international community.

Key-words: cyber sanctions; targeted sanctions; European Union; Council Regulation (EU) no. 2019/796.