Russian President Vladimir Putin has spoken out against the European Union’s proposed sanctions on the purchase of Russian oil exports, claiming that adopting such a policy would amount to “economic suicide” for the countries of Western Europe.
In a televised address on Tuesday, Putin responded to the EU’s proposed oil embargo on Russia, which has stalled in the past week as a small group of EU members have refused to support such a measure.
“Obviously, some EU states, in whose energy balance the share of Russian hydrocarbons is especially high, will not be able to do this for a long time, to ditch our oil,” said Putin.
“Of course, such an economic suicide is a domestic affair of the European countries,” he continued.
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the EU has been escalating economic sanctions on the Russian Federation in an effort to cut off oxygen to the Russian economy and impair Russia’s ability to continue to wage war.
However, the European body suffers from fundamental asymmetries among its constituent members regarding their varying degrees of dependence on Russian fuels.
An embargo on fuel would be less devastating for France, which in the past decade has greatly developed its nuclear power infrastructure, allowing the hexagonal republic a high degree of independence from Russian fossil fuels.
In contrast, the smaller Central European nations of Hungary and Slovakia have dragged their feet in approving the oil embargo, as both rely significantly on Russian fuel exports. Both countries have requested exemptions from the EU oil embargo, claiming that an embargo on Russian oil exports would devastate their economies—concerns which were echoed by Putin’s recent remarks.
Germany, which also relies to a significant degree on Russian fuel exports, has wavered on the subject of an embargo on Russian oil, but the country helmed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl recently signaled its support for the embargo. German policymakers have worked fastidiously since the recent escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war to find alternatives to Russian fossil fuels. At the end of last month, German Energy Minister Robert Habeck announced that Russian exports accounted for only about 12 percent of the German oil supply, down from about a third at the start of the war.
