The United States and its allies in the Group of 7 nations set two goals in 2022 when they enacted a novel plan to cap the price of Russian oil: restrict Moscow’s ability to profit from its energy exports while allowing its oil to continue flowing on international markets to prevent a global price shock.
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A variety of factors have allowed Russia to continue profiting from strong oil revenue, including lenient enforcement of the price cap. Russia’s development of an extensive “shadow” fleet of tankers has allowed it to largely circumvent that policy. That has allowed the Russian economy to be more resilient than expected, raising questions about the effectiveness of the coordinated sanctions campaign employed by the G7.
The Biden administration maintains that the strategy has been effective and that the price cap has imposed costs on Russia and forced it to redirect money that it would have used in Ukraine to finance an alternative oil ecosystem.
IDK the biggest energy company in Russia Gazprom recently posted losses for 2023. That was BEFORE Ukraine began to target Russian refineries and oil depots.
Also the strategy was to LOWER Russian profits, so oil production keeps going, to prevent global oil prices from exploding, but make it so Russia has as little profit as possible.
Apparently that strategy has worked extremely well, and with Ukrainian attacks on refineries, the effect will probably more than double, as Russia now needs to export crude oil, and re-import it as refined products, to sustain both the war effort and the population. Further stressing the Russian economy, but still without harming global oil prices.
It’s very clever IMO, and it must be extremely frustrating for the Russians.