Russian crude oil exports are back above levels seen before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the ratcheting up of Western sanctions, new data shows. Russia, meanwhile, is benefitting from the oil-intensive requirements of India and China as huge developing nations, while it “aims to return to pre-war oil sales volumes”. However, the price cap coalition has failed to plug a major enforcement gap in the Pacific trade from Russia’s Far Eastern ports to China, where price benchmarks for Russian crude oil have stayed above the level of the cap for most of the time since the policy was introduced, he said