Andriy Klymenko is a renowned expert on sanctions and security issues in Ukraine and beyond, and serves as editor-in-chief (and co-founder) of the Blackseanews.net internet portal. Ukrinform met and talked with Mr. Andriy about one of the key issues of the day: why are the sanctions that the democratic world is imposing against fascist Russia are so slow being implemented and yielding results?

Let's start with the most relevant one:

- Mr. Andriy, do you believe that the long-awaited US sanctions against Lukoil and Rosneft will be effective? Is this possible in principle?

- These sanctions are more likely a warning gesture by the US president. They demonstrate the United States’ readiness to return to the sanctions policy, which they have not actually implemented since January of this year. Trump also said that he doesn’t expect these sanctions will last long. That is, for now the restrictions perform one function - to force Putin into negotiations with Ukraine. It seems that this tool is not being used to inflict any significant economic damage, but in a purely political aspect. We will wait and see whether it is going to have a strong effect.

- And yet, won't they affect the Russian economy at all?

- Sanctions make Rosneft and Lukoil toxic for everyone. No one in the world can have financial relations with them, buy anything, sell anything. If Indian, Chinese, or any other companies contact them in some way or another, with their ships, their enterprises, they will have problems with the American currency and American banks.... The US Treasury Department, when imposing sanctions, typically allows a month time "to think about it." That is, during the days before November 21, all those in the world who have dealt with Rosneft and Lukoil will be analyzing these documents, contracts, the geopolitical situation to understand whether this is a real risk or just political scaremongering. We'll see.

- However, Putin seems to have got scared. In general, there are estimates showing that, should these sanctions have been applied 3.5 years ago, the effect would have been guaranteed. And now they are like antibiotics: if you stop taking them earlier than the doctor prescribed, or reduce the dose, they will only “train the infection”, make it more resistant…

- Three years ago, the US dollar was the main currency the Russian Federation used for settlement of accounts with other countries. And today they use non-cash payment schemes, as they did in the 1990s. Now they are either paid in yuan, or simply delivered some products. On top of that, Russia has made significant advances in the field of settlements in cryptocurrency. Therefore, you are absolutely right saying that three years ago this would have had a great effect one hundred percent. Now we'll see... Now the Chinese and Indian companies, I think, and the Turkish ones, too, as the main buyers of Russian oil and petroleum products are forecasting risks, and they still have almost a month time, and during this month, I'm confident, nothing will change. That is, Russian oil exports will continue at the same rate. And then we'll see.

- How exactly will we see?

- Through our maritime monitoring.

- Or maybe there is no effect from the sanctions at all yet? North Korea, Iran have been under sanctions for decades and this doesn’t prevent them from supplying the aggressor with state-of-the-art weapons at a huge rate. Does humanity have any tools to stop this "market orgy"?

- The problem is that for all 80 years after World War II, the world has been very persistent building a free market economy with freedom of trade, freedom of transit, removal of trade barriers... The WTO was established - the World Trade Organization. And it turned out that mostly those sanctions were effective that were introduced by the UN General Assembly resolutions. Because the whole world had to comply with those sanctions.

And when not all countries comply with sanctions, as in our case, then in the free global economy, there will be lots of ways and technologies to circumvent sanctions. We have a special division within the Ministry of Defense that “disassembles” a missile or a Shahed drone and finds hundreds of components there – devices, circuit boards, microcircuits, and identifies their manufacturers. And these manufacturers are from the USA, Great Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands...

That is, their products are used so that Russia can kill people in Ukraine.

When it comes to bulky products – vehicles, agricultural machinery, machine tools, production lines, which are made in the West -- they all incorporate software that needs to be updated on a regular basis. That is, it has, relatively speaking, a “beacon” that allows the manufacturer to know that this, say, combine harvester is in such and such a country, and this machine is there. But you won’t put such a beacon on each microcircuit, on each circuit board, on everything that is massively used in military equipment.

And besides, in the modern economy there are many opportunities for making payments in cryptocurrency, which is not controlled by banks, or settle accounts through debt swaps, when currency money, so to speak, does not cross borders physically and thus does not fall into the sphere of financial control.

- So a kind of a free black market has been created?

- Something like that. I find it hard to imagine that a chip manufacturer in the Netherlands will answer the question of how it happened that the chip it made flew in a missile that killed people in Kyiv or Chernihiv. Well, it may say: what can I do? Yes, I sold the chip, but it is intended for consumer goods. I produced it, sold it, that's my job, and it was bought, resold five times and here you have it...

Only an embargo will help here, only tough measures, that is, a trade blockade, as was once the case with North Korea. An oil embargo imposed by the European Union and the G7 countries on Russia is currently in effect, they themselves introduced it at the end of 2022, that is, they do not buy it or allow crude oil and petroleum products originating in Russia to their ports. Only such measures work.

In practice, it looks like this - there is a document prohibiting deliveries to the Russian Federation, and then there is a list of commodity nomenclature, customs codes, and there are hundreds and thousands of names and numbers - the so-called commodity item codes. Of course, it is difficult to control this and there will be violations. That is, this is an objectively difficult situation and, unfortunately, there is still no idea of how sanctions regimes and a free economy can coexist. It is very difficult to expel an aggressor country from the free world economy, because not everyone in the world believes that this should be done. And it is precisely because of them, those who do not support sanctions against the Russian Federation, that the redirection of commodity flows took place.

- But a trade blockade is impossible unless with the use of force. That is, fleets stand by and prevent tankers from entering the straits, arrest them, and forcibly send them to their home ports, right? This is a real war, not a hybrid one.

- Exactly so. The European Union has already added almost 600 tankers to its sanctions lists. But, according to information available to us, seaborne oil exports from the Russian Federation, no matter what anyone says, have not fallen, but are even growing. According to our objective monitoring data for September, it has grown.

In four Russian export regions (the Arctic, the Far East, the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea), it has grown by a full million tons of crude oil from August, having raised to 23 million tons from 22 million tons the month before. Moreover, this million was almost entirely added due to export over the Black Sea. In the Baltic, the export rates remained as they were at 11 million tons. We are saying to our European friends: look, there are already more than 600 tankers under sanctions from the European Union, Great Britain, and Canada. Plus, there are sanctions from the United States. But the current model of sanctions does not really hinder the oil export flows from Russia.

- And what do sanctions against a tanker mean? It seems they don't care at all...

- Sanctions prohibit them from calling at ports in those countries that have imposed sanctions. In addition, a sanctioned tanker cannot use their port services such as an access to piloting services, insurance, maritime service companies, etc. But it is not prohibited from sailing through territorial waters (the legally correct term is "the territorial sea") of the respective country.

Look, the Baltic Straits, that is, the Danish Straits, which are the three main channels that connect the Baltic Sea to the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean - are the territorial waters of Denmark and Sweden, which are EU and NATO member countries. But I reiterate it: sanctions do not prohibit foreign ships from passing through the territorial sea. And pilotage in these straits is not mandatory, only optional.

If there were a model of sanctions that bans passing through territorial waters, it would work not only in the Danish Straits, but also partially in the English Channel - in the area where French and British sea borders come together.

- And we were so happy for the Baltic Sea that it is now NATO's internal sea...

- Despite the Russian Baltic Fleet being weak, they behave there with impudence, as usual. They escort tankers, their planes and UAVs violate any airspace. We are saying to our European friends: if you are going to introduce any restrictions against tankers sailing through the Baltic Sea (and the Baltic Sea accounts for half of Russia’s seaborne crude oil exports), then we must be ready - the naval forces of the Baltic Sea countries must be engaged in this, that is, demonstrate their presence and readiness...

- We often sea reports of tankers sailing without a flag or under a false flag. Is this possible at all today?

- When legal norms designed for peacetime are being destroyed during wartime - everything becomes possible. Each vessel must be registered in the maritime register of one of the countries of the world. If a vessel is not registered and does not carry a flag, this means that any warship can (even obliged to) detain it anywhere in the world's oceans.

But let's look at what actually has happened. The Estonians detained a tanker in the Baltic Sea for not carrying a flag, arrested it, anchored it, and it stayed anchored there for a week. During this time, the shipowner registered the flag, meaning the ship was registered in the state maritime register of one of the African countries, and then the tanker was let go.

Then the same register stripped the same tanker of its flag – this is the result of the active work carried out by Ukrainian diplomats. And a few weeks later, this same tanker was detained again, this time by the French, in the Brest area and escorted to Saint-Nazaire to ride on the roadstead.

The court in Brest considered the case and… the tanker was released. Why? Because it turned out: indeed, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that a ship without a flag can and should be detained, but… this provision is absent from their national legislation.

- It is difficult for an outsider to imagine such a situation …

- From what I understand, the European Commission is currently trying to quickly draw up some recommendations for all EU countries on how to apply this 110th article of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to their respective legislations.

But it doesn’t end there. For example, you stopped a tanker, arrested it, and anchored it. And moorage of a huge ship up to 300 meters long costs at least 25 thousand dollars a day. There is a crew of 20 people - there must be drinking water, food. Life support systems must work, and they do not work without electricity. That is, the engine must work, generating electricity so that the ship does not sink where it is anchored. ... And now note: in September of this year, out of 94 oil tankers passing through the Baltic Sea, three did not carry flags, that is, didn’t have a state affiliation during their stay in the Baltic Sea, including when passing through the straits, and another six tankers carried false flags (4 - Comoros, 1 - Benin, 1 - Sierra Leone). These tankers carried 1.1 million tons of oil for export, which is 9.9% of the total amount of Russian oil exported in September.

That is, 9.9% was legally indisputable reserve No. 1 for physically reducing the flow of seaborne oil exports: they should have been certainly detained by naval ships of any of the Baltic Sea countries, or even denied access to the Baltic Sea.

- What about NATO’s naval capability? Can it be involved?

- Our European partners, whom we do not criticize, but try to point out where there are gaps and reserves, are already coming to an understanding that when they try to detain or not let a sanctioned or “flagless” tanker into the Baltic Sea, their civilian maritime inspections should be “hedged” by the navies of these countries.

In other words, a small port surveillance boat, coast guard or environmental service, when detaining a huge three-hundred-meter-long vessel, should feel that there is a frigate with naval special forces on board behind them, which ensures safety.

We are confident that our European friends will finally get to this, because otherwise the situation looks like this: EU countries support Ukraine in all the ways, spending hundreds of billions of euros per year. And about the same hundred billion worth of Russian oil flows past their shores and through their straits during the same year. We call this "perpetuum mobile of Putin's war".

- And how to handle it finally?

- In order to reduce the Putin regime's ability to finance the war, the Baltic Sea countries will have to find ways to physically limit the passage of tankers. There is simply no alternative to this.

This is possible if we change the sanctions model in such a way that all sailors, shipowners, traders, banks and insurance companies, various maritime agencies worldwide accept that:

1) no tanker without a flag or carrying a false flag will be able to pass on to the Baltic Sea. Let me recall that there were nine of them (carrying 9.9% of Russia’s total export oil volume) in September;

2) a tanker sanctioned by the EU, Great Britain, USA, Canada, or Australia is denied passage through the Danish Straits. In September, there were 38 sanctioned tankers passing through the Baltic Sea (39.5% of the total export oil volume). This is reserve No. 2 for the physical reduction of Russia’s seaborne oil exports, providing the formula of EU sanctions is altered, that is, the ban is expanded to include territorial waters…

3) no tanker blacklisted under official international port control memoranda, Paris or Tokyo ones, that is, is a potential object of increased danger due to its inadequate operating condition, will be able to pass on to the Baltic Sea.

In September of this year, 15 out of 94 tankers sailing through the Baltic were on these “black lists.” They carried 15.4% of export crude oil. This is an indisputable reserve No. 3 for physically reducing the seaborne oil exports from the Russian Federation.

The Baltic Sea countries know very well that a year ago, about 8,000 tons of fuel oil spilled into the Black Sea from two small Russian tankers, and fuel oil is still flowing onto the beach of Anapa in the Krasnodar Krai region. And imagine that in the Baltic Sea, which is much smaller than the Black Sea, something bad would happen to a tanker carrying 150,000 tons, that is, 20 times more? This would cause an end to fishing, resorts, and the ecology of all of the Baltic countries.

These are the approaches Ukrainian experts are currently promoting in coordination with diplomats and the president. I think everyone feels that this is the subject of constant, in the normal sense of the word, “pressure” from Ukraine. Unfortunately, it is not going as fast as we would like.

- And what about the people who are hired to work on those tankers?

- What will those who are hired to work on those tankers as ship captains, navigators, or sailors do when they get to know that their ship has been denied passage through the straits? That is their own risk...

- That's right. Sanctions, supervision, courts... Why is everything going so slowly? There is already an official decision to establish a special Tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine. But it will not start working until the end of 2026. Can’t it be done sooner? This is also delaying the provision of a reparations loan to Ukraine backed by the windfall proceeds generated from Russian sovereign assets immobilized in Western jurisdictions…

- We must understand that Europe is a law-abiding community. These are people, countries, politicians who are used to living by the rules. And we too are striving in there, understanding that we must live by the law. So before doing anything, they conduct a legal assessment, they think: yeah, we'll do that now, and then there will be lawsuits filed against us, and we too will have to release that tanker, will have to apologize for six months, and pay a bunch of compensations.

Needless to say, we want it to go faster. But it would be possible if our friends in Europe felt every day that a missile could fly into their office, into their house, into the house of their loved ones. But they don’t feel it now and never felt it before. Believe me, this carries a powerful psychological impact. It’s no coincidence that all official foreign guests in Kyiv are taken to locations of destruction caused by Russian airstrikes…

However, after the incidents with drones flying into Poland and other EU countries and other similar incidents, the Europeans are now accelerating. And our task – for diplomats, experts, and journalists alike – is to do everything we can to help them understand that it is necessary to do it faster, faster, and even more faster...

- And so far, despite all our UAV attacks and the internal fuel shortage in Russia, the export of not only crude oil but also petroleum products from Russia is growing...

- Since the beginning of the Great War, we have been monitoring the Black Sea on a daily basis. Afterwards, we added the Baltic Sea, and now we monitor all four regions – the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Arctic, and the Far East. On average, we monitor some 550 tankers every month. And we do it, let's say, not in the way our colleagues – foreign maritime analysts -- are used to doing. There is a software program that does this all, and they underestimate the fact that the Russians have learned to bypass such services. As a result, they see 20-30% less than we do.

I mean, we haven't seen a decrease in Russia's oil exports yet, and in the last couple of months there has even been an increase. Why? First, these exports are critically important for the Russian Federation to sustain the war. And second, during a war, no public information coming from hostile sources can be trusted.

And when we see reports from reputable world agencies that Russia has banned the export of petroleum products, Russian officials are saying this to their own population - the one that is standing in queues at gas stations. We will soon see what will happen after the end of October. But we should never draw hasty conclusions. Indeed, the day will come when they will be short of petroleum products for export. But we must understand that each major port hosts huge oil storage facilities, up to a million tons each. These are the reserves to sustain exports.

- What’s your understanding of how to finally bring it to a stop? Where is the "needle in the egg" that will ultimately defeat the Koshchei sitting in the Kremlin?

- We have to proceed with the Ukrainian campaign of “long-range sanctions” against Russia’s oil refining sector, because when the economic sanctions imposed by the civilized world do not work, we can only count on the sanctions imposed by the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

- Europe is waking up, yes, but too slowly… Can we help it somehow?

- President Zelensky purportedly have said this recently. He said, friends, we understand your procedures, but hurry up, for God's sake.

We also need to understand what is behind their procedures. It's not just a matter of working faster… Do you think everyone in the Baltic Sea countries understands what I'm telling you now? – unfortunately, no. And in order for their naval forces or port authorities to know the picture as we see it, in each country there must be in place a regulatory document that specifies who is empowered to do such monitoring – whether it is the Ministry of Defense, or the Navy Command, or port authorities. The designated department should be provided with personnel, salaries, and computers. A communication system should be set up between such departments in different countries to put the whole picture together.

In Ukraine, we are used to doing it differently: where a new trouble arises, we show initiative, everyone does what they can, together with the government, and that is what makes it faster. But it’s not that way there in Europe. But still, we need to see that the EU, together with Great Britain and Canada, is moving very quickly compared to 2022 or 2023 or even 2024. When did it ever happen before that the presidents and prime ministers of European countries would meet several times a week to help Ukraine?

- Mr. Andriy, there are questions that I cannot help but ask you, a native of Crimea. It’s about the Kerch Strait Bridge. Is it really just a symbol of occupation, or does it have any military significance for the adversary?

- I will tell you even more. Crimea itself no longer has any military significance for Russia. Regarding the bridge, it, in fact, cannot be used to its full capacity after the first successful attack, and even less so as the attacks on it continue. The alternative they advertised – a railway running along the Azov Sea coast – they also have problems there, because it is within the reach of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And in Crimea, we see on news feed how our Special Operations Command, military intelligence, and the Security Service of Ukraine are working, at times delivering several attacks per week. Airfields, facilities storing petroleum products, air defense systems are being systematically destroyed… I get the impression that we can see major successful attacks by our military there in the Black Sea sooner than on land.

Incidentally, this goes against the vision persistently imposed on us by even some of our respected European friends – that Crimea will remain under Russian occupation for a long time, if not forever. Such thoughts need to be cut off, even not in a really polite way…

And Crimea, basically, has always had a negatively sacred significance for Russia. Koshchei’s death is where Crimea is. In the history of the Russian Empire, Crimea invariably signified future cataclysms. After suffering a defeat in the 1854-1855 Crimean War, Emperor Nicholas I suddenly died. This entailed fundamental transformations - the abolition of serfdom in Russia, judicial reform, and land reform among others. Members of the People’s Will -- assassins of Emperor Alexander II -- were all Crimeans, including Andrei Zhelyabov who was born and studied in Feodosia and Kerch, and Sofia Perovskaya was the daughter of the Crimean governor. Emperor Alexander III was assassinated in a railway sabotage, which nearly caused the death of the entire royal family. Where were they traveling from? - from Crimea... Finally, we remember August 1991, the State Committee on the State of Emergency, the detention of Gorbachev at his dacha in Foros - this actually led the Soviet Union to collapse in a matter of days. And my confidence is that it is with the liberation of Crimea that our victory in the war and the collapse of the Russian Empire in its current form will begin.

- And how do you see the future of Ukrainian Crimea?

- At one of events back in 2023, experts were saying that Crimea’s future lies in its resorts, tourism, and so on. I think we need to forget about this for a while. Because what we are experiencing now is not just Russia’s war against Ukraine, but Putin’s attempt to completely reshape the European security architecture. And Crimea’s strategic location in the middle of the Black Sea is extremely important. Therefore, Crimea, first of all, should be a powerful military base that would ensure shipping safety in the Black Sea and provide a missile defense umbrella over eastern and southern Europe. This will be part of the new Iron Curtain that should be set up after Ukraine wins this war together with our partners.

Serhiy Tykhy led this conversation