Mr. Tony Connelly:

There is clearly a debate about whether sanctions are effective given that when the war happened there were a lot of dire warnings within Russia that GDP would collapse to Soviet-era levels. Clearly, whatever sanctions were put in place have not deterred Vladimir Putin at all and have not constrained his actions.

The view in the European Commission is that sanctions are a long game. There was a team of economists and economic experts around Vladimir Putin who apparently did a lot of work to try to mitigate the effect of sanctions and asset freezes on the Russian central bank and so on. There was a very big debate within the community of economists in Russia about whether people should morally take part in that kind of activity or should leave Russia. I think those who stayed simply swallowed their discomfort and are now working in Russia's national interest to make sure sanctions do not have an effect and they have been quite successful in that regard.

Mr. Montgomery is right to say there is a lot of what is called "backfilling" by China, India and Türkiye on essential goods for Russia. The view in the EU is that sanctions are a long game and export controls especially will start to take effect. These would be on dual-use goods. The tenth sanctions package due out in the next couple of weeks is expected to hit products quite hard in terms of export controls. Essentially, these are goods that Russia needs for running the military operation and that it needs in energy. I was given the example of a certain kind of tool needed for use in oil refineries which has to be replaced every six months. These tools are made in Germany and nowhere else. If those tools are banned from entering Russia, the country will start to feel the impact of export controls.

There is also a view that, in conjunction with the G7, the price cap on Russian oil is starting to have an effect. We have seen the impact of that in countries only paying a certain amount for Russian oil. According to the European Commission, the cap is costing Russia €160 million per day, which is a significant amount of money. There is a belief that this will start to really hurt the Russian economy even if countries are helping Russia. By the same token, if India is buying Russian oil, it will not necessarily pay above what other countries are paying for Russian oil.

Another aspect is that Ukrainians are extreme diligent. Ukraine's intelligence services retrieve drones and missiles that are shot down over the country, take them apart and let the European Commission know whether any of the components are European made. They were alarmed to discover that the rotors on the Iranian drones they shot down are made in Austria, of all places. That is how the EU can take action when it gets indications that sanctions or export controls are being breached.

From an Irish point of view, interestingly, David O'Sullivan, a former senior Irish civil servant in the European Commission, is now part of a task force that travels around the world with the US and UK checking on what companies are evading sanctions. Those companies can then be listed by the EU and potentially sanctioned themselves. That is all part of the work to target the companies and countries that circumvent sanctions for Russia's benefit. Clearly, overall the sanctions so far have not really changed Russia's posture on the war in Ukraine. It could be argued, however, that Russia is suffering in terms of ammunition and its ability to produce weapons in Russia if it is not getting semi-conductors, for example, and other key parts. Sanctions have not delivered precisely the immediate results the West was hoping for but the belief is that they will start to bite over time.