It was obvious to the U.S. and Great Britain that Moscow’s ability to fight the war over the long term would depend on its ability to finance it, and that a key source of this was revenue from Europe’s imports of gas and oil. At around the same time, Germany’s then-Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, warned: “We also have to tell the Americans that their behaviour on the Iran issue will drive us Europeans into a common position with Russia and China against the USA.” Shortly after that, Germany was a key mover in the E.U.’s introduction of a special purpose vehicle – the ‘Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges’ – that would act as a clearing house for payments made between Iran and E.U. foreign policy head Kaja Kallas, posted on social media that: “We’re adding more chemicals, metal components, salts, and ores to our export bans and tighter export controls on entities from Russia as well as China [and India].” As a senior source in the E.U.’s security complex exclusively told OilPrice.com last week: “We and Washington said we’d keep tightening the screws on Putin and that’s what we’ve done.”
Author: Simon Watkins
Published at: 2025-12-09 23:00:00
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