Observations

Regardless of readers' views about the military conflict and the extent to which the UK should be involved, these two reports are not about this. They are about economic sanctions against Putin's Russia and the level of the EU's hypocrisy. We have exposed the difference between EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's repeated public announcements - and the reality. The simple fact is that Brexit Britain has once again outperformed the EU to a major degree.

The EU propaganda continues

The EU Commission has continued to put out a relentless series of statements accompanying its 12 sets of sanctions spread over the last 18 months. Even when it does not have new sanctions to announce it proclaims what it is doing on a regular basis.

Our report shows the numbers which the EU cannot escape from.

‘Funded by the UK’ - A Brexit dividend

The EU Commission wastes no opportunity to label any assistance it gives to Ukraine as “Funded by the EU” when in reality this aid comes from individual EU countries. If the UK had still been a member country, the Ukrainian people would have had no idea of the extent of the UK’s support. It would have been subsumed within the EU umbrella and under its label.

On military aid the United Kingdom has been far and away the most prolific and timely provider of military equipment and training for the Ukrainian armed forces. No other EU country has come close and in some cases – notably Germany – this assistance has had to be dragged out of them. The UK has been assisting the Ukrainian military since Putin’s first illegal invasion of Ukrainian Crimea in 2014, while the EU did very little.

If the UK had still been a member of the EU, it is certain that last year it would have had to follow the EU’s bureaucratic, insufficient, and very slow response to Putin's latest illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The EU’s ‘sanctions packages’ against Russia

As we pointed out yesterday, when it comes to international sanctions these need to be immediate and co-ordinated if they are going to have the desired effect in altering the behaviour of the rogue state in question – in this case Russia.

To this day the EU is buying significant volumes of Russian goods, thereby helping to fund the Russian economy during Putin’s ongoing atrocities against Ukraine. EU companies have also continued to profit from their sales to Putin’s Russia.

Since late February 2022, the EU has adopted a total of 12 sanctions packages against Russia and against countries such as Belarus. These have been decided upon on average every couple of months.

Some of the latest ones have been designed to address the growing problem of Russia circumventing the measures by using third countries through which to channel their goods. These channels have been very useful for those EU countries who were happy to turn a blind eye to the provenance of energy products in particular.

The figures we have shown above are those for direct purchases from Russia and direct sales to it. The reality is that the numbers would be even higher if the sales to and from third countries were correctly classified as originating from Russia.

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