What are the West's Russia sanctions missing?
What are the West's Russia sanctions missing?
Some conspicuous absences exist in the West's sanctions regime against Russia, allowing it to contine raking in a fortune.
Despite much “distasteful” trade carrying on, Keatinge notes some "is very challenging to cut, like the ongoing trade in nuclear fuel." The AP news agency reported in August Moscow was raking in hundreds of millions of euros selling nuclear fuel to the US and Europe, which are entirely dependent on Russian products.
Certainly worth thinking about, when new reactors are planned.
Why can we not buy nuclear fuel from Australia?
Australia produces uranium ore, but you need to enrich it to produce nuclear fuel. Austrlia does not have the facilities to do that right now. Russia controlls 40% of the global enrichment facilties. Right now France, USA, UK, Germany and the Netherlands also have such facilities and well some other countries too, but besides Japan an maybe India both of which do not have large ones, I would not rely on them either.
There are a lot of Soviet designed nuclear reactors in the EU. Those all tended to buy Russia production as it was cheap and the Russians obviously understood those reactors best. That still continues. Hungary has Russia build them a new nuclear power plant right now.
Target the regime and its supporters. Plenty of oligarchs/kleptocrats living the high life in the west.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A Yale University study from July 2022 claimed the sanctions, which targeted a sweep of industries and trades, were “catastrophically crippling” the Russian economy, citing the ruble's collapse and mass exodus of Western firms.
Its GDP - an indicator of economic health measuring the total value of goods and services a country produces - is predicted in a Reuters poll to rise 0.7% this year, all the while other European economies splutter and stagnate.
“There are plenty of gaps in the existing sanctions regime,” Tom Keatinge, Director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at Royal United Services Insitute, tells Euronews.
While these are ostensibly to pay for energy imports that are still allowed in some cases, Keatinge says transactions are “very hard to police”, suggesting payments for oil and gas could mask purchases of other items, such as high-tech military goods.
“If you block off trade by one route, it just finds another way,” details Harrison, citing a historical example of World War One where exports were “simply rerouted” through neutral European countries after Britain imposed a naval blockade on Germany.
Led by ultra-nationalist Viktor Orban, Hungary has gained notoriety for continuing to purchase Russian energy, while some worry sanctions fatigue is gripping Austria, with one political party saying last October restrictions should be put to a referendum.
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I don't like this. Especially that these summaries tend to rise to the top.
Reality. They are missing reality.
The sanctions are toothless because there is no reason for China, India, Brasil or Turkey to comply with them.