The secret is carefully kept by the liberal UK media. Here is the Guardian’s Jennifer Rankin, writing a quite detailed piece trying to give the impression of the US and EU being united on sanctions on Russia. I wonder who Jennifer Rankin works for?
How Jennifer Rankin manages to get through this long and apparently thorough article without mentioning that a) the EU, in monetary terms, imports as much gas from Russia now as they did before the war, [1], b) that total EU/Russia trade is still a healthy €67.5 billion annually [2] and c) that it is not just Hungary and Slovakia who import Russian energy products. Germany is increasing its imports of LNG [3], I don’t know. This is a quick summary of EU-Russia trade, from the EU itself:
In 2024, total trade in goods between the EU and Russia amounted to €67.5 billion, compared to €257.5 billion in 2021. The EU’s imports were worth €35.9 billion and were dominated by fuel and mining products – especially mineral fuels (€22.3 billion, 62.1%), manufactured products, such as chemicals (€2.8 billion, 7.8%) and iron and steel (€2.6 billion, 7.2%).
The EU’s exports to Russia in 2024 totalled €31.5 billion, compared to €99.0 billion in 2021. They were led by chemicals (€13.7 billion), food and raw materials (€5.9 billion), and machinery and transport equipment (€4.1 billion.
Two-way trade in services between the EU and Russia in 2023 amounted to €17.2 billion, with EU imports of services from Russia representing €4.9 billion and exports of services to Russia accounting for €12.3 billion.
EU foreign direct investment (FDI) outward stock in Russia amounted to €215.6 billion in 2023, while Russia’s FDI stock in the EU was estimated at €156.3 billion. [2]
So; how the Guardian journalist manages not to mention all this accept one partial, tangential admission; “The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, told the Financial Times that if Europe ceased to buy Russian fossil fuels, that would “absolutely” have a positive influence on the US adopting more aggressive sanctions on Russia”, I don’t quite know.
There are a number of other points to note in this article. Sometimes US officials, and media, are more open and transparent than their opposite numbers in Europe. This is US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent:
We need our European partners to follow us, because if the US and EU can do this together … we are in a race now between how long the Ukrainian military hold up versus how long can the Russian economy hold up.
That is, essentially it. The only strategy the EU has is clinging to the hope that they can crush Russia with their economic might. But this is not rationally founded. As we have seen above, they cannot even implement forcible sanctions. Immediate and total EU cessation of trade right at the start of the war in February 2022 might have managed to precipitate a crash in the Russian economy. But partial and incrementally implemented sanctions will not do the trick. Apart from anything else, the incremental implementation of sanctions flagged up months in advance, means that Russia has always had time to adapt, to find new markets. In von der Leyen’s dream Russia gives up because of economic pressure. From time to time she boasts about how well this is going. But, on the other side of the balance sheet, thousands of Ukrainians are dying each month. Von der Leyen’s sanctions regime is carefully crafted so not a single German suffers even a loss of central heating. But, she has no qualms about throwing thousands of Ukrainian lives into the death-trap while we still wait for her partial and incremental sanctions to lead to this supposed collapse in Russia – at some distant point in the future. So distant in fact, that it is like the Second Coming; a mythical belief with no rational basis. Daniel Davis’ rather apt characterisation of von der Leyen is: “Totally morally unmoored and oblivious to the wreckage”. [Podcast 8/9/25 ‘Putin Bombs Away. Europe and Ukraine refuse to face facts“]
This is the EU Council President, António Costa:
Speaking in Helsinki on Monday, Costa said the EU and US were “coordinating our efforts to align our sanctions, to be more effective” and to increase pressure on Putin to join peace negotiations with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
And Finland’s Prime Minister is quoted:
that Putin will not stop killing, he will not go to the negotiation tables. That is why we have to cooperate with and negotiate with the US to find a way to do more sanctions, stronger sanctions, do more military support to Ukraine, and build security arrangements to Ukraine.
This theme resonates throughout the article. But, the whole idea is based on pure folly. At least Jennifer Rankin manages to quote the Kremlin: “The Kremlin said on Monday that no sanctions would ever force Russia to change course on Ukraine”. Which is the truth. For Russia, this is existential and absolute. They are not carrying out the cost-benefit appraisal the EU leaders think they are; therefore, increasing the costs has no effect. And, a more concerning possibility; if sanctions looked like breaking the Russian economy, and thus the Russian state, the Kremlin would likely treat this as an existential attack, and then all options are on the table. One doesn’t know whether to be more amazed by the hubristic belief that sanctions will change the course of the war, or by the weak and ineffectual implementation of them by the EU, a fact largely covered up for them by the liberal media.
Notes
- https://thenewobserver.co.uk/a-case-study-in-hypocrisy-the-eu-and-russian-gas/
- https://thenewobserver.co.uk/a-case-study-in-hypocrisy-the-eu-and-russian-gas/
- https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/01/30/germanys-russian-lng-imports-surge-over-500-in-2024-a87799 / https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/germany-cant-shake-russian-gas-lng-purchases-arctic-yamal-project-skyrocket / https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-dependence-imported-fossil-fuels