LONDON, July 15 — The mechanics of Western sanctions on Russia have shifted from shock-and-awe to a grinding war of attrition, and the latest data suggests the pressure is working — but not as neatly as the architects in Washington and Brussels had hoped. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the coalition of the United States, European Union, United Kingdom and allies imposed sweeping sanctions targeting Russia’s energy sector, financial system and key individuals.
The catch is that Moscow has found workarounds, and the debate over whether the measures are truly biting has only intensified. The headline figure tells a clear story.
According to the International Energy Agency, Russia’s oil and gas revenues fell from an estimated $340 billion in 2022 to around $240 billion in 2024 — a decline of roughly 30%. That is not a trivial drop for a Kremlin that relies on hydrocarbon exports to fund its war machine.
The mechanics here are straightforward: the US banned Russian oil imports in March 2022, the EU imposed an embargo on seaborne Russian crude oil in December 2022, and the G7 and EU set a price cap of $60 per barrel on Russian crude oil in the same month. The idea was to starve Moscow of revenue while keeping global crude flowing to avoid a price spike.
But on closer reading, the revenue decline is not purely a sanctions success story. Russia redirected exports to new customers, and the volumes tell a different tale. In 2024, China imported about 2.4 million barrels per day of Russian crude, up from 1.6 million in 2021.
India’s imports surged from 0.3 million barrels per day to 1.8 million over the same period. Those two buyers alone absorbed much of the oil that Europe once took. The price cap, meanwhile, has been a mixed tool — it was designed to force Russia to sell at a discount, and it has done that, but enforcement remains patchy, and Moscow has built its own shadow fleet of tankers to bypass Western insurance and shipping restrictions.
Europe’s gas pivot: from 40% to under 10%
The EU’s reduction of Russian gas imports is perhaps the most dramatic structural shift. In 2021, Russian gas accounted for 40% of the EU’s total gas imports. By 2024, that figure had fallen to under 10%.
That is a geopolitical reordering of Europe’s energy map in under three years, driven by a combination of sanctions, voluntary reductions, and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. The EU has scrambled to secure liquefied natural gas from the United States, Qatar and elsewhere, and has built out renewable capacity faster than many expected.
The cost has been high — European industry has faced elevated energy prices, and some manufacturers have relocated production to the US or Asia. But the strategic logic is clear: the EU no longer bankrolls the Kremlin’s war with every winter heating bill. The sanctions have been renewed annually, and the EU’s 14th sanctions package was adopted in June 2024, adding new restrictions on transshipment of Russian LNG and targeting entities that help Moscow circumvent the price cap.
The adaptation problem
The effectiveness of sanctions remains debated, with some analysts noting Russia’s ability to adapt. Moscow has built alternative payment systems, deepened trade ties with China and India, and ramped up domestic production of sanctioned components. The Russian economy has not collapsed — it has contracted, but not catastrophically.
Real GDP fell in 2022 and 2023, but the International Monetary Fund has projected modest growth for 2024, driven by military spending and import substitution. The catch is that adaptation comes at a cost.
Russia is selling its oil at a discount, spending heavily on logistics and insurance for its shadow fleet, and losing access to Western technology and investment. The long-term damage to Russia’s energy sector is real: without Western equipment and expertise, new production projects are delayed or cancelled, and existing fields are degrading faster than they can be maintained. The question is whether the current pace of sanctions is enough to force a strategic shift in Moscow’s behavior, or whether it simply locks in a grinding, low-intensity economic war.
What to watch next
The next phase of the sanctions regime will likely focus on enforcement — closing loopholes in the price cap, targeting the shadow fleet, and pressuring countries like China and India to limit their role as transit hubs for sanctioned goods. The EU’s 14th package already signals a shift toward secondary sanctions and tighter export controls. The US administration under President Donald Trump has maintained the core sanctions architecture, though the tone from Washington has been more transactional than the Biden-era approach.
On the ground, the revenue data from the IEA will be updated later this year, and that will be the real test. If Russia’s oil and gas revenues continue to slide, the sanctions are working.
If they stabilise or rebound, the coalition will need to rethink its strategy. For now, the mechanism is in place, the pressure is on, and the outcome is anything but certain.
