Three and a half years after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the outcome of Western energy sanctions on Russia can be read in a few numbers. Russian crude exports are only modestly lower than before the war. Gas exports to Europe have collapsed and have not been replaced. Coal exports are lower and squeezed by rail bottlenecks. The difference between these outcomes is not mainly about sanctions design. It is about infrastructure.
Oil: a pivot that mostly succeeded
According to the US Energy Information Administration, Russia exported an average of 5.0 million barrels a day of crude and condensate between 2020 and 2024. Exports were 4.8 million barrels a day in 2024 and 4.3 million in the first half of 2025, lower but still substantial.
The destination shift is dramatic. Europe took 51 per cent of Russia's crude and condensate exports in 2020, but only 12 per cent in 2024 and 11 per cent in the first half of 2025, with more than half of that going to Türkiye. Asia and Oceania went from 41 per cent of Russian exports in 2020 to 81 per cent in 2024.
China remains the largest buyer, at 2.2 million barrels a day in 2024 and 2.0 million in the first half of 2025, an increase of 500,000 barrels a day from 2020. India is the more remarkable story: Russian exports to India rose from about 50,000 barrels a day in 2020 to 1.7 million barrels a day in 2024 and averaged 1.6 million in the first half of 2025.
The EIA makes the key point plainly. Russia redirected crude exports from Europe to Asia with little new infrastructure. Crude travels by tanker, and a tanker that used to sail from the Baltic to Rotterdam can sail to India instead. The cost is a longer voyage and, for a time, discounts to buyers, but the physical system is flexible.
Gas: Europe's market is irreplaceable for now
Gas is the opposite case. The EU never directly sanctioned imports of Russian gas, yet its imports fell by more than two-thirds, from 14.7 billion cubic feet a day in 2020 to 4.4 billion in 2024, as a result of other policies and economic factors. Most of that gas moved by pipeline, and pipelines cannot be turned around.
Russia's main eastern gas route is Power of Siberia 1, whose construction began in 2014. Since the Chinese segment was completed in December 2024, the pipeline has been running close to its design capacity of 3.7 billion cubic feet a day. That is significant, but it is a fraction of the volume Russia used to send to the EU.
The obvious solution, Power of Siberia 2, has been discussed for years. It would connect gas fields in western Siberia that previously served Europe to consumers in eastern China. The EIA notes that it would need more than 2,000 miles of new pipeline and that China and Russia have so far not agreed terms. Without it, much of the gas that once supplied Europe has nowhere to go.
The commercial imbalance is clear. China has alternatives: domestic production, LNG from many suppliers and pipelines from Central Asia. Russia has few alternatives for its western Siberian gas. In such a negotiation, the buyer holds the stronger hand, which is why terms have proved elusive.
Coal: a railway constraint
Coal sits between oil and gas. It is shipped by sea and can in principle go anywhere, but most Russian coal must first travel by rail from mines far inland. From 2020 to 2024, Russia's coal exports to Europe fell by more than half. Europe received 32 per cent of Russia's coal exports in 2020, with Germany, Türkiye and the Netherlands the largest buyers, but only 13 per cent in 2024, almost all of which went to Türkiye.
Asia absorbed much of the difference. China took slightly more than half of Russia's coal exports in 2024, and exports to India rose from about 9.1 million short tons in 2020 to about 24.8 million short tons in 2024, as India expanded imports to meet growing power demand.
But total coal exports are still below pre-war levels, falling 9 per cent from 2020 to 2022 and another 13 per cent from 2022 to 2024. The EIA identifies the reason: Russia exports coal mainly by rail, and the limited eastbound network is congested. Coal miners compete with every other commodity seeking an eastern outlet for the same rail capacity.
The sanctions instruments are changing
The infrastructure contrast explains why Western policy has increasingly focused on oil buyers rather than on Russia alone. On 6 August 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing an additional 25 per cent tariff on imports from India, effective 27 August, in response to India's purchases of Russian oil. The White House fact sheet says the order also sets out a process for considering similar tariffs on other countries that import Russian oil directly or indirectly. The EIA noted that the tariffs or other sanctions could affect Russia's export volumes.
The logic is that if oil is the commodity Russia can redirect easily, the pressure point is the buyer. That raises the stakes for India in particular, which built up a large trade in discounted Russian crude within a few years and now faces a direct trade penalty for continuing it.
What the next phase looks like
Three dynamics will shape Russian energy exports from here. The first is whether secondary measures such as tariffs on buyers reduce Russian crude flows to Asia, or simply widen discounts. The second is whether Power of Siberia 2 is agreed, which would determine whether Russian gas can find a large second market at all. The third is whether Russia can invest enough in eastern rail and port capacity to restore coal exports, given the congestion that already limits eastbound volumes.
The broader lesson is that the effectiveness of energy sanctions depends heavily on the physical form of the commodity. Measures against seaborne oil can redirect trade but struggle to remove barrels. Measures that coincide with infrastructure lock-in, as with pipeline gas, can remove a supplier from a market for years.