DISINFO: New EU sanctions will be as useless and harmful for Europe as previous ones
SUMMARY
EU officials are trying to impose new sanctions against Russia. The key question is what is the point, since the sanctions already in place were inefficient. Russia is still one of the key suppliers of natural gas for Europe despite all sanctions. Between January and August 2024, 18% of all EU gas natural imports came from Russia. In Spain there was a 75% rise in Russian gas imports between January to June 2024 compared with the same period in 2021. These facts suggest that the EU's goal of ending its dependence on Russian energy is very difficult to achieve. Experts think that the new sanctions mechanism against Russia will cause enormous harm to European countries.
RESPONSE
This is a disingenuous distortion of the content of the latest sanctions discussed by EU members in October 2024, aiming to promote a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the futility of sanctions against Russia despite clear evidence to the contrary.
In contrast to what this disinformation story implies, these new sanctions are not of a bilateral economic character. Early in October 2024, ambassadors from the 27-nation EU meeting in Brussels approved the creation of a new legal framework to impose visa bans and asset freezes on individuals responsible for sabotage attacks and hybrid threats, after a series of incidents throughout Europe for which Moscow has been credibly accused. Therefore, the claim that this new mechanism will hurt European countries does not make sense and is used only to push anti-sanctions messaging.
Data used in this disinformation story is cherry-picked and presented without proper context. For example, while Spain is an important buyer of Russian gas, it only represents around one quarter of Spain’s gas imports in any given month. While it is true that the share of Russian gas was 18% of all EU imports in 2024, it is far away from the figure of 45% that it was in 2021. Besides, 42% of the energy consumed by the EU is produced domestically.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that according to the Draghi report, EU faces economic difficulties due to rejection of Russian energy, that Europe’s unescapable dependence on Russia has it on the edge of the abyss, that sanctions that were supposed to destroy Russia may disintegrate the EU, or that Russia’s economy is massively outperforming that of the collective West.