Nearly five months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Western governments have a problem: despite international sanctions and rebukes for Russia's actions, the world's reliance (especially Europe's) on Russian energy is sustaining Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The world is already feeling the effects of the invasion on energy prices, and now Europe has announced it will impose an embargo on Russian oil by the end of the year — a move that would significantly impede Russia’s ability to benefit from high oil prices, but would also further constrict Europe’s energy supplies going into what could be a cold winter. If actually implemented as described, the embargo is also likely to drive the global price of oil far higher, triggering recessions around the world. Because of those… problems… world leaders from the G7 have been discussing possible solutions.
I talk with Margarita Balmaceda, a professor of diplomacy and international relations at Seton Hall University and an expert on the energy trade in Eastern Europe, about those ideas, whether they might work, how Europe allowed itself to get so dependent on Russia despite manifest signs of Russia’s unreliability as an energy partner.
Visit www.joshbarro.com for a transcript of this episode.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.joshbarro.com/subscribe
The podcast Very Serious with Josh Barro is embedded on this page from an open RSS feed. All files, descriptions, artwork and other metadata from the RSS-feed is the property of the podcast owner and not affiliated with or validated by Podplay.