Explainer: How the world is paying for Putin’s war in Ukraine

Explainer: How the world is paying for Putin’s war in Ukraine

In early March, as the US and its allies unleashed a wave of sanctions on Russia, President Joe Biden stood in the White House and said they wanted to deal a “powerful blow” to Putin’s war machine.

But as the war in Ukraineapproaches its 100th day, that machine is still very much operational. Russia is being propelled by a flood of cash that could average $800 million a day this year — and that’s just what the commodity superpower is raking in fromoil and gas.

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For years, Russia has acted as a vast commodity supermarket selling what an insatiable world has needed: Not just energy, but wheat, nickel, aluminum, and palladium too.

The invasion of Ukraine has pushed the US and the European Union to rethink this relationship. It’s taking time, though the EU took a further step this week by hammering out a compromise agreement onRussian oil imports.

Russia is far from unscathed by the sanctions, which have made it a pariah across the developed world. Corporate giants have fled, many walking away from billions of dollars of assets, and the economy is heading for a deep recession. But