A US group has identified several vague but potentially major sanctions they say could seriously hamper Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine after the Kremlin targeted its biggest oil companies last month.
Previous rounds of sanctions have been imposed on Russian energy companies, banks, military suppliers and a “shadow fleet” of ships carrying Russian oil.
But Dekleptocracy, a civil society group that researches Russia’s war economy, says the chemicals used to make mechanical lubricants and military-grade tires are a vulnerability that policymakers in the US, Britain and the EU could exploit.
Christopher Harrison, the group’s chairman and a former State Department expert on Russia, described the targets as “peculiar and specific”, unlike microchips and oil companies, which typically attract the attention of governments and agencies. But they are hard to replace and are essential to Moscow’s ability to deploy and fight tanks. Called dekleptocracy.
“A shortage of lubricants would seriously damage Russia’s war machine,” it wrote in its latest report.
Only a few companies worldwide produce chemical additives for mechanical lubricants – motor oils for tanks and cars. Almost all of them stopped selling chemicals to Russia at the beginning of its full-scale invasion, leading to widespread shortages and complaints from motorists.
Dekleptocracy found that a Chinese company, Xinjiang Richful, now satisfies a large portion of Russia’s demand, supplying up to eight million kilograms per year. Richful recently established an office in Virginia. The group says blocking it, as well as some smaller suppliers, would create a shortage of mechanical lubricants in Russia.
Xinjiang Richful did not respond to a request for comment.
Dekleptocracy also found that Russia has little domestic capacity to produce vulcanization accelerators and other substances needed to make military-grade tires.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the G7 meeting last week that most major sanctions options had been taken. He said, “Well, there is not much left to sanction from our side, I mean we have hit their major oil companies, which is what everyone is asking for.”
Tom Keatinge, director of the Center for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute, the UK’s leading defense think tank, Said Dekleptocracy findings are valuable work and evidence that the target of sanctions remains.
“As long as Russia is successfully purchasing the components it needs for its military, and as long as Russia is successfully selling its oil, the environment remains target-rich,” he said.
Russia has a strong oil industry, but it lacks domestic producers of many lesser-known but important chemicals, including food additives and substances used to make tires, pharmaceuticals, and shampoo. Moscow launched an initiative earlier this year to produce hundreds of chemicals domestically – proof that the sector is a weakness, the dekleptocracy says.
Harrison said, “We looked at the Russian economy, something they desperately need to keep their war machine going.” “We looked at their manufacturing base, their chemical base, to find significant issues, things that the Russians can’t manufacture themselves.”
Rubio’s comments come after the US imposed sanctions on Russian oil producers Rosneft and Lukoil in October in an effort to “demoralize” Russia’s war machine.
Keating said it was too early to determine whether sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil were effective, as little was done to enforce secondary sanctions against companies that continued to buy oil from them.
“A successful sanctions regime depends not only on identifying new targets, but also on ensuring enforcement against previously identified targets,” he said. “Ukraine’s allies need to enforce existing sanctions and take action against those who facilitate piracy.”
Dekleptocracy was involved in previous efforts to ban the Arctic LNG 2 gas terminal. It worked with the Biden administration to identify elements of the project – such as specific ice-class tankers – essential to its operation and sensitive to US pressure.
“I think he has done an incredible job of demonstrating a potential weakness that could be at least disruptive,” said Kara Abercrombie, who was formerly the U.S. assistant secretary of defense under Joe Biden. “Maybe not permanently damaging, but certainly disruptive.”
Dekleptocracy is part of a larger civil society effort – including Ukrainian groups like Razom We Stand and B4Ukraine and the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in the US – to mine vast amounts of trade data to uncover weaknesses in Russia’s war economy and pinpoint targets for sanctions for governments. Keating said groups often find targets that policymakers miss.
“This is very valuable work. There are anomalies that come up regularly that need attention,” he said.
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