This is John Batchel.

Conversation with my good colleague, Michael Bernstein, the Hoover Institution, has been my guide on Russian sanctions for coming three years.

How is it that Europe can't give up Russian energy?

How is it that Europe pretends that it's given up Russian energy, or some of Europe?

Germany is the only country that's banned importing Russian natural gas.

And so the workaround.

The rest of Europe just imports it and says they can't do without it,

meaning money flows into the budget in Russia.

What is the sanctions regime meant to do?

Break Russia because the budget can't be paid for.

Well, here's Michael Bernstam to explain how Europe doing without Russian energy must have

Russian energy and pay for it.

More of this later.

The European Commission considered it, and they found out that they cannot do it,

because the Russian liquefied natural gas is very important for Europe.

Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium are four major importers of Russian natural gas,

and they resell it to Germany.

Germany, the only European country, banned prohibit it, were bought the Russian import of

liquefied natural gas.

But then the data shows that there's 9%, 9.2% of the German consumption of

liquidified natural gas comes from Russia.

So how is it possible?

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