The liberal world order designed by Western nations has put these countries in a dominant role regarding the use of economic statecraft, particularly the U.S. The use of economic sanctions has long been an exclusive privilege of these economically dominant powers. Indeed, Russia and China have historically framed sanctions as illegitimate interferences with state sovereignty. Now, China and Russia are increasingly pushing back against this hegemony. In 2021 both have adopted laws on adopting economic sanctions, institutionalizing their deployment of these instruments. However, economic sanctions research continues to predominantly take the perspective of Western actors like the US, the EU, and the UN. While existing datasets document hundreds of sanctions by Western countries, they record only a limited number from Russia and China. Unlike these existing datasets, which rely exclusively on English-language sources, we draw on thousands of original governmental and non-governmental documents in Russian and Chinese. This approach has allowed us to identify over 180 instances of economic sanctions imposed by Russia and China between 2000 and 2023, with a marked increase in recent years. Recognizing that Russia and China have historically framed sanctions as illegitimate interferences with state sovereignty, we pay particular attention to the motives and narratives they now use to justify their actions. Our findings challenge the perception that Russia and China are reluctant users of economic sanctions and shed light on the rhetorical strategies they employ to depict their sanctions as “countermeasures” rather than offensive actions.