The Wall Street Journal reports:

Russia built a self-proclaimed fortress around its economy in the run-up to war—but there was a crack. Moscow depended on foreign middlemen to ferry its most strategic and lucrative export around the world: oil.

Now the most-important middleman, Trafigura Group, is joining several competitors in cutting off Russian giant Rosneft Oil Co. from global oil markets. In a high-stakes move that goes farther than official Western sanctions, the Swiss commodities trader plans to stop exporting Rosneft’s crude altogether. It will cut its business with the state producer to a sliver of prewar levels, supplying only some refined products such as diesel into Europe, according to a spokeswoman.

Trafigura and other traders were already poised to lose a big chunk of their Russian business on May 15, when sanctions go into effect that bar them from selling Rosneft oil to countries outside the European Union and Switzerland. In also deciding to cut exports to Europe, long the biggest buyer of Russian oil, they are getting ahead of EU countries that are discussing a full ban. [Continue reading…]

Quartz reports:

After weeks of reluctance over banning Russian oil imports, German officials today (Apr. 29) reversed course, agreeing to a gradual, EU-wide embargo. Other European countries have recently grown more amenable to such a ban as well, as Russia’s war on Ukraine has persisted.

The EU’s 27 member states have to agree unanimously for a ban to come into effect. But Germany has been the major opponent to this measure, because it purchases so much Russian oil and gas. Last year, Germany bought 27 billion tons of Russian crude, a third of its overall oil consumption. “It was a mistake that Germany became so heavily dependent on energy imports from Russia,” Christian Lindner, Germany’s finance minister, told the New York Times earlier this month. [Continue reading…]