A conversation on the outlook for Europe’s gas market and the proposed Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline linking Russia and China.

Podcast host Alex Gabuev is joined by Sergey Vakulenko, a prominent expert on Russia’s shadow fleet, oil trade, and sanctions evasion, and a senior fellow at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center; and Tatiana Mitrova, another sought after expert on the energy market, Russian oil and transportation, and a research fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy, to discuss Russia's energy sector, sanctions, global trade and more.

Perhaps each of the parties was hoping that one of the others would have such a vested interest in continuing the transit that they would agree to lose face and make concessions, but in the end everyone was prepared to suffer rather than give anything away to the enemy.

Since the beginning of the war, the West has managed to put a dent in Russia’s oil revenues, but it is now struggling to reduce them further.

As the latest U.S. sanctions make it even harder and more expensive for Russian businesses to settle international payments, they are being forced to resort to the age-old practice of hawala.

Russia has largely inherited the Soviet Union’s Middle East foreign policy. China may be best positioned to take advantage of this historical relationship.

With a quarter of the global tanker fleet transporting Russian cargo in 2024, the so-called “shadow fleet” is neither as separate nor as obscure as might have been thought.

The sanctions deployed against Russia have failed to break Vladimir Putin’s war machine, and now the West is looking for ways to make them more potent. In doing so, Western policymakers should remain clear-eyed about potential risks and side effects.

In response to “Why Ukraine Should Keep Striking Russian Oil Refineries” by Michael Liebreich, Lauri Myllyvirta, and Sam Winter-Levy.

The bulk of the current analysis of the attacks on refineries is celebratory, with a strong element of confirmation bias—and that is a classical folly that prevents learning. Russia’s refining sector, unlike its Black Sea Fleet, has proven to be resilient to the recent type of attacks, rather than the Achilles’ heel of the Russian economy that many were hoping it would be.