Venezuela had 'sanctions' starting on 2016, last year of Obama presidency. The scope of those sanctions is very limited to SOME individuals either in the Government and some business associates. There is no general embargo. And while the political scenario seems to no have changed very much, at least on the name and faces, the sanctions are the clear starting point on a big economic change that happened on 2018, where the economy opened up and was unofficially dollarized, probably by those who were not longer able to easily extract those dollars and euros into the US and EU (and fiscal paradises)like they were use to do. In this case, the sanctions had improved millions of lives and I guess that is good enough
Cuba, North Korea didn't have any of those. Venezuela and Iran only share the export-reliant economy bit.
If the goal is to make the population turn on Putin's regime, sanctions are more likely to work here than ever before.