[mindslight]

> Europe kept buying Russian oil and gas, because other sources could not come online quickly enough

They did do sanctions, so I don't know what you're trying to argue.

> Tariffs would have only made energy even more expensive than it already was.

Not as expensive as outright sanctions, of course.

As I said - sanctions are discrete (yes or no), whereas tariffs are a continuous knob.

[jltsiren]

There were essentially no sanctions impacting Russian energy exports to Europe. Those would have hurt Europe much more than Russia. If you can't export something, the damage is proportional to the volume of the exports. But if you don't have enough energy, your entire economy suffers.

The increases in energy prices mostly came from voluntary attempts to find alternatives to Russian energy and from Russia constraining the supply.

[Kbelicius]

Why would Russia voluntarily give up money by constraining the supply during the war? That makes absolutely no sense.

[Sabinus]

Coersion. A comparatively small amount of revenue being given up could scare Europe away from supplying Ukraine with materiel. The Russians put out ads about how Europe would be freezing through winter.