Renaud Foucart

For all intents and purposes, China now owns Russia and could use this power to end the war in Ukraine.

Two years after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia is still facing an unprecedented number of economic sanctions. It has been excluded from major global financial services, and around €260 billion (£222 billion) of its central bank assets have been frozen. Russian airspace is closed to most western planes, and western ports are closed to Russian vessels. A formal cap has been imposed on buying or processing Russian oil sold for more than $60 per barrel (world prices currently fluctuate between $80 and $100. And in theory, it is illegal to sell Russia anything that could be used by the…

The Kyiv School of Economics estimates Western companies still operating in Russia made over $213.9 billion in revenues in 2022.