The Hypocrisy of Sanctions

The Piousness of Following Orders

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A few days ago, Belgian Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten requested the European Union to reduce importing Russian gas and get rid altogether of fossil fuels by 2027. This after the Global Witness NGO released data showing that Belgium is currently the third-largest importer of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Belgium accounts globally for 17% of Russia’s exports, behind only China and Spain.

Later in an interview with the Financial Times, Van der Straeten said she was “not happy” about the fact that Russian gas kept flowing into Europe. She then understated Belgium’s share of Russian gas, indicating it was merely 2.8% of Europe’s imports remained in Belgium, the rest was “in transit”. How wrong or misleading her statement was, is revealed by the Global Witness NGO.  

She admitted, though Belgium supports sanctions on Russian fuel, it was unlikely to happen. It would require the unanimous support of all EU members.

Earlier this week, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer admitted that Russian LNG was difficult to replace, pointing out that while it was “not cheaper than any other” gas, the way the pipeline system is arranged in Europe makes it difficult to substitute.

There is no end to excuses and pretexts in explaining why Europe must continue to import Russian hydrocarbons. Amazing. No word about the European economy which is at the brink of total collapse. Maybe Germany has already passed the point of no return. 

And no word of course that this suicidal path to follow the Washington Masters – and their overlords dictate — is due to an utterly corrupt European leadership, combined with the equally corrupt strongest economy’s leadership, Germany – something that has hardly been seen in recent history. 

How vassalic must you be to commit suicide on the orders of Washington – and the corporate financial overlords who pull the strings on Washington, pretending to run the world.

And they may, if we just stand by and watch. 

See also this by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts about the west’s lost integrity – The Disappearance of Integrity: Organized Suppression of the Facts, Only Writers Who Support “Official Narratives” Are Tolerated.

This is just the beginning. The EU Russian energy apologists start talking about energy imports from Russia – and how it is necessary for now – but also how to wean themselves off Russian energy dependence very, very soon. 

The Guardian puts it this way:

“EU countries bought 22m cubic meters of Russian LNG between January and July 2023, compared with 15m during the same period in 2021, Global Witness said. “Buying Russian gas has the same impact as buying Russian oil. Both fund the war in Ukraine, and every euro means more bloodshed.” See this.

This is, of course, a mainstream media blow on Russia. Never a reason or history on how NATO provoked the war in Ukraine.

This is just part of the story. What the holy west and particularly the vassal-EU does not mention are the other more than 100 essential products they keep importing from Russia at ever larger quantities despite the sanctions. 

This table speaks for itself 

European Union Imports from Russia Value Year
Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products $155.87B 2022
Iron and steel $5.91B 2022
Pearls, precious stones, metals, coins $3.70B 2022
Nickel $3.39B 2022
Aluminum $2.99B 2022
Copper $2.94B 2022
Commodities not specified according to kind $2.77B 2022
Fertilizers $2.70B 2022
Inorganic chemicals, precious metal compound, isotope $2.26B 2022
Wood and articles of wood, wood charcoal $1.70B 2022
Organic chemicals $1.31B 2022
Fish, crustaceans, molluscs, aquatics invertebrates $990.39M 2022

And the list goes on – another 82 lines of imports.

2022 EU Imports from Russia are the 3rd largest since 2013, despite sanctions. 

People are fooled.

Europe cannot live without imports from Russia.

So, what are the sanctions for?

Propaganda?

Russia bashing?

Your mind control?

Another legitimate question one may ask – why does Russia sell to the sanctioning countries?

Russia does not really need Europe and the US for trade and for economic survival.

President Putin’s Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov, recently said that Russia is doing well and growing, despite western sanctions. See this. 

Russia is well integrated into the Asian complex, is a co-founder of the original BRICS and now the new BRICS-11. Russia is also a key player in the Global South which becomes ever more important on the global stage. 

Uranium imports by the US and Europe from Russia is another unwritten sheet and rarely published news.

Russia sold about $1.7 billion in nuclear products to firms in the U.S. and Europe, and this despite the western stiff sanctions, due to the western provoked war in Ukraine. The West calls it a Russian invasion. In reality, it was a NATO-triggered move for preserving Russian sovereignty – and against some 20 to 30 war-grade biolabs in the Ukraine, built and funded by the US. See this.

“The United States’ uranium purchases from Russia have doubled since last year. The U.S. bought 416 tons of uranium from Russia in the first half of the year, more than double the amount for the same period in 2022 and the highest level since 2005.”

One may question the seriousness of the US Russia bashing, especially since according to a report by RT, Russia is supplying the U.S. only with enriched uranium, a critical component for civil nuclear power generation, but also for nuclear weapons – according to a report by RT. 

How come Russia is selling Washington weapon-grade enriched uranium? 

See full report.

Given the foregoing inconsistencies with “sanctions” – mind you, highly publicized sanctions – how serious can the West be taken? 

The world must wake up. People of western countries, whose democracy has long been abolished, trampled by the tyrannical western powers “rules-based order”, must stand up against these rulers, invent alternatives to their corporate financial empires and build a world of peace and harmony outside the dictatorial matrix.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is from OneWorld


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