The Sanctions Are Breaking Down

As for fighting a proxy war with sanctions, all of Western Europe's tough talk and virtue signaling seems not to have amounted to much of anything.

As it happens, and as Zero Hedge reports, the sanctions regime is breaking down. Countries need Russian gas more than they need to show how tough they are:

Three weeks ago we reported that when faced with the actual, brutal consequences of its anti-Russian virtue signaling and harsh language, Europe's fake united front promptly cracked crack as several European gas buyers quietly paid for supplies in rubles as Russia had demanded - in breach of Brussels sanctions - and we predicted that soon virtually everyone in Europe would follow in their footsteps and similarly bypass EU sanctions. Moments ago, one of the most powerful people in Europe - former Goldman partner and ECB head - Mario Draghi, confirmed just that.

Speaking during a press conference in Washington D.C. after his meeting with Joe Biden, Draghi said that European gas importers have already opened accounts in rubles with Gazprom.

The Italian PM was responding to a question asking if he is confident that Italy will be able to pay for gas without breaching sanctions and therefore gas flow to Italy won’t be affected.

“I’m actually quite confident, but for a silly reason. There is no official pronouncement of what it means to breach sanctions. Nobody ever said anything about whether rubles payments breach sanctions or not, how these payments are organized. So it’s such a gray zone here.”

Actually, it's not a gray zone at all: on April 27, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen specifically warned companies not to bend to Russia’s demands to pay for gas in rubles: "companies with such contracts should not accede to the Russian demands,” von der Leyen said. “This would be a breach of the sanctions so a high risk for the companies.”

In other words, Draghi is either completely unaware of the current realty over the hottest topic in the world today, or is blatantly lying, and in the process demonstrating that the entire "united European front" against Putin is one giant farcical facade.

Which led to the just as stunning conclusion from Draghi': “As a matter of fact, most gas importers have already opened an account in rubles with Gazprom”, Draghi added in a stunning revelation that behind the scenes, Europe not continues to actively pay Russia billions every day, but is doing so on Putin's terms and helping send the Ruble soaring!

Go figure.