The EU considers its sanctions against russia to be effective

This was reported by The Guardian, citing David O'Sullivan.

David O'Sullivan, an experienced Irish official, noted that sanctions ‘are not a panacea’ and will always be circumvented, but stressed that after four years, he is confident that they are having an effect.

‘Perhaps in 2026 we will reach a point where all this becomes unsustainable, because a significant part of the russian economy has been so distorted by the development of the military economy at the expense of the civilian economy.

I think that defying the laws of economic gravity can only last for a certain amount of time,’ he said in an interview.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU has imposed an unprecedented 19 rounds of sanctions against russia, targeting more than 2,700 individuals and organisations, and halted trade in broad economic areas, including energy, aviation, IT, luxury goods and consumer goods, diamonds and gold.

The EU has set itself the goal of persuading other countries not to allow the resale of European goods to russia, especially components that can be used or reprocessed for military purposes.

O'Sullivan noted that the bloc has had some success in ‘preventing the direct re-export of critical weapons products’ through Central Asia, the Caucasus, Turkey, Serbia, the UAE and, ‘to a lesser extent,’ Malaysia.

He said most cases of sanctions circumvention involved ‘economic operators who saw economic opportunities and made money’ rather than government actions.

However, he said, ‘China is clearly providing support’ to russia, although not in the form of direct military equipment supplies.

He also noted that there has been a significant increase in awareness among EU member states of the possibility of Western technologies being sold to foreign distributors who then supply goods to russia.

‘I don't think we have completely eliminated this problem, but in my opinion, we have reduced it,’ the EU representative said.

O'Sullivan said the EU had successfully taken measures to counter russia's shadow fleet – old tankers of unknown ownership that transport russian oil to export markets in China and India. As of December, nearly 600 vessels were under EU sanctions.

Source: Economic Pravda, The Guardian