Sanctions on Russian oil have failed. Were they ever meant to succeed?
Al Jazeera
Western sanctions imposed a year ago have hardly dented Russia’s ability to wage war.
Last December, the European Union banned imports of Russian crude oil in a bid to starve the Russian war machine into submission over its invasion of Ukraine.
A year later, the ban appears to have been a failure.
The Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), which monitors Russian oil sales, estimates that Moscow will make $178bn from oil sales this year, rising to a potential $200bn next year.
These amounts are lower than the record $218 bn Russia earned in oil revenues during the first year of the war, when Europe was still buying about half its oil exports, but they show that Russia has replaced that lost revenue remarkably quickly.
“Russia now has to ship its oil over much larger distances. You basically have only China and India left, so it reduces competition and reduces prices,” said Jan Stockbruegger, a researcher with the Ocean Infrastructure Research Group at the University of Copenhagen.
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