Are Russian sanctions working? An extensive article with this title is published by the British “The Spectator”.

“Soaring gas and electricity prices are giving us an idea of the cost of imposing sanctions on Russia – a cost which may be worth bearing if it helps to defeat Russian aggression, but a cost nonetheless. But how complete and effective are the sanctions? Trade figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today reveal that Britain, at least for now, has achieved one of its chief objectives: it has weaned itself off Russian oil and gas. In June there were no imports of fuels from Russia. In the 12 months to February, by contrast, 5.9% of Britain’s crude oil imports, 24.1% of our refined oil imports and 4.9% of gas imports came from Russia.

Overall, there were £33 million of goods imports from Russia in June, a 96.6% fall since the average monthly total in the 12 months to February. Among the goods still being imported from Russia are machinery, iron and steel, minerals and paper/paper products. Exports to Russia fell by substantially less – by 66.9% to £83 million. Exports of chemicals have actually risen over the past 12 months – the main reason being that this category includes pharmaceuticals, which are exempt from sanctions.

On the face of it, then, Britain’s sanctions regime has been a success. The Russian economy has certainly suffered from international efforts (at least on the part of western countries) to cut off the country from much trade. But a note of caution needs to be sounded. Britain may no longer be receiving direct gas imports from Russia (we used to import liquified natural gas (LNG) by ship), but that does not mean we are insulated from gas supply problems being experienced by Germany and other European countries. While we are importing more LNG from the US and Qatar, and indeed in recent months have been re-exporting some of that gas to mainland Europe, we remain at the end of a European pipeline which is fed at the eastern end by Russia. Come winter, the decrease of Russian gas is going to impact on our own gas supplies.

Neither Britain nor western countries as a group can cut off Russia by themselves. While Russia has been exporting less oil and gas to the West, it has increased exports to India and China. Can we be sure some of those fuels are not finding their way back to Britain? As I wrote here in June, there are signs that Russian oil is reaching Europe via India. Today’s ONS release will not put such concerns at rest.

Among the revelations in today’s ONS release is that Britain has upped its oil imports from Belgium in place of those from Russia. But Belgium has no oil reserves. What it does have is oil refineries, which have to be fed with crude oil imported from elsewhere. This is not to say that refined oil we import from Belgium is ultimately being sourced from Russia, but the raw figures for exports and imports don’t tell us where goods are really coming from – only the country from which they have arrived in Britain. The Russian economy may have been deeply affected by western sanctions, but it is fair to assume that they are not as absolute as we are led to believe and that there is a certain amount of leakage of Russian exports to the West”, - reads the author.